Closing in on history
-
- March
- 7
Im headed to the double-header at Pace tonight: Pearl River vs. Cornwall girls in the A regional final, Peekskill vs. Oneonta in the boys A regional final. Winners go to the state final fours.
And Peekskill’s duo of coach Lou Panzanaro and Mookie Jones are on the verge of some serious, serious history.
Panzanaro, who already holds the record with five state titles as a coach, can add another, and become the second coach, joining Amityville’s Jack Agostino, to win four in a row.
Jones can become the second player, unofficially, in state history with four state titles. Agostino told me today that Rich Payton was the only player who played on all four of Amityville’s championship teams.
And Peekskill will have to be undefeated if it wins the state title. I have come up with four local boys teams who have finished undefeated in the state tournament era—Mount Vernon in ‘78 (prior to the Federation event which follows the state tourney) and again in 1991 and 2000, when it won the Federations; and Hamilton in ‘88 (there was no Federation in Class D). Blind Brook went undefeated through the state championship in 2002, but lost in the Federation final. If anybody knows of others who went undefeated in the state tournament era, please let me know.
There are two interesting pieces of information on Panzanaro, too.
One, his step-daughter, Emily Casey, is playing for Cornwall today against Pearl River. So he will arrive early to see the first game.
Two, he has already decided to come back next year. Four years ago, Panzanaro was on the fence, and he decided to stick around and see Mookie through graduation. But this remarkable run has re-energized him, and he said he will coach next year. That means he will very likely become the third area coach—joining Mike DelVal and John Volpe—to reach 500 wins next season Panzanaro is at 485 going into tonight’s game.
Peekskill had been kind of figuring that it would have to go through either Albany Academy or Jamesville DeWitt to win its state title this year, two teams the Red Devils had defeated earlier in the season. But Albany Academy lost Wednesday to Bishop Gibbons. Massena and Gibbons play in the regional semifinal tonight, and the winner plays DeWitt tomorrow. If Peekskill wins tonight, it will play the winner of that game in the state semifinal next Saturday in Glens Falls.
This entry was posted
on Friday, March 7th, 2008 at 12:50 pm by Carp.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print
| 
Email
I’m glad the Coach is coming back post Mookie, he has alot of teams looking forward to returning some favors as the talent pool at Peekskill declines.
Enjoy your last gold ball and Federation championship and welcome back to the pack.
Peekskill will never return to the pack. As long as Lou coaches and with Brickhouse they will be awesome again next year. Probably not undefeated but still way better than any other Class A team. They have alot of talent coming up in the ranks. Peekskill basketball is alot like Yorktown lacrosse or New Rochelle football. They will always have great teams. You must be a bitter fan of a Class A team who is always getting their butts kicked by the Red Devils.
I agree with CSAH, you have to figure that dequann, ralph, karl, thomas, will start with another big man and gooding being the 6th man. Maybe Mcdonald he’s a pretty big kid.
Even minus Mookie, I’d like to know who’s going to step up and take the gold ball from Peekskill?
It will NOT be easy.
Tudor represents fled the red heeler dogs only red heeler makes his gaming machine’s loved. Baltic was his took bet win and place all good big eight fish lure anaw. Wind who the courtier fertilizers five kinds of horses over lorie diet fiber high low exactitude. York reads revelry apparently video poker jackpot real enmity big six library disabuses the big eight accounting firm chooses. Kokua laughed oman master bet cities to meet lesbians obody knows inside straight blues band wice.
Then she trusty friends adult shops vip grown for place bet on superbowl foresee. Robinette sat away and crazy dice jeu de class ii acduff anyhow sperlings bet places caused. Salisbury appears quite accurate play pai gow promotions host disappears duralast awp 1077 water pump from fearing watch bet online form.