Welcome to this week’s breakdown of the Vision High School Sports Beat, your behind the scenes look at the production, from the producer and the shows many contributors. It’s week 9 of the Sports Beat season, and the fall sports season is winding down – Winter is coming!
We begin in Fairport with the Red Raiders Boys Volleyball team. We first mentioned the team during the Section V Spotlight in September, when the Raiders went to and won the prestigious Eden Can-Am tournament in West Seneca. It was a great start to their season, and now we find them, near the end of an incredible run. Sometimes when you go to cover a team, a story will materialize during the interviews, and that was the case with this team. These guys have a really tight bond, and that feeling of “we have to win to play together again” was apparent, and became the theme of our story. As written by Dave Yates, here’s “One More Day” …
Paul Gotham from PickinSplinters.com joins us next for the Dunkin Donuts High School Notebook. This week, the entire segment is about the girls soccer Section V title match between Spencerport and Mercy. Paul was in attendance for the game, and was more than happy to tell us all about it. With time running out on us, there were a couple of topics left out of the conversation. One was on the strength of the Livingston County/ Genesee Region: There are 11 schools in that league. Five (Batavia, Attica, Letchworth/Warsaw, Alexander and York/Pavilion) went on to play in the finals.
Kim Berntson joins us with this week’s Making the Grade nominee. Cameron Morrissey from Bishop Kearney is a member of the BK Selects Academy hockey team, and like most of those players, is from outside the Rochester area. She is one of 40 students living on campus at Kearney, and playing on the highly-touted hockey team. We met some of the hockey players last season, when several girls were also on the Kings softball team.
This week’s McArdle’s Section V Spotlight focuses on just some of the recently crowned champions in Section V. Also, for those interested in working up a hunger on Thanksgiving morning, there is a Turkey Trot 5K being held at Pittsford Mendon that you may be interested in. Great way to build up an appetite, and proceeds will go to benefit those battling Opioid addiction at Gates Recovery.
Our main story of the week is about the Mercy Crew team, and their recent trip to Boston for the Head of the Charles Regatta. It’s one of the biggest regatta’s in the country, and over 11,000 athletes participated in the two-day event. Mercy’s invite was an honor in and of itself, and the goal in going is to perform well enough to earn an automatic bid for next year. While that didn’t work out for the Monarchs, the experience of going to The Charles is one they will never forget.
Special thanks to Gerry Rightmyer for providing video from Boston, and helping to make the story possible. Also, a shout out to Kyle O’Gara, a new production assistant with Classy Wolf Media, who bore the cold and wind to board a boat and film the crew team on the Genesee River. It was Kyle’s first solo shoot for us, and he got some great footage. He also recorded his feet for 5 minutes. Thanks Kyle!
Staying warm on a boat ride on the Genesee River with Mercy Crew (not seen) – Photo by Kyle O’Gara (feet seen)
One of our favorite things to do with the Sports Beat Insider, is to provide exclusive footage, and in this instance, we have some more footage from the Mercy crew team to share.
And that’s a wrap on week 9! Be sure to check out the full episode– and tune in Every Saturday night on 13 WHAM after the late news, and on Sundays at Noon.
Follow the High School Sports Beat on Twitter, and be sure to check back here each Monday for the latest Insider!
We leave you this week, with an Insider weekly feature – looking back at some of our stories from the past 7 years. From October 12, 2011 – a story on a girls volleyball game between Hilton and Spencerport to benefit Mercy student Emma Falk. We were at practice with the Cadets, and talked with Hayley Fallesen and Alyse Wenzel, both of whom went on to play volleyball in college. Emma recovered from her battle with leukemia, and played college volleyball at Loyala University Maryland.
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