Allie Allen signing with Drexel Lacrosse

NEW PMYC FIELD AT VALLEY FORGE CHRISTIAN COLLEGE

Phoenixville Marian Youth Club (PMYC) dedicated a new multi-purpose field for use by youngsters at Valley Forge Christian College (VFCC) in Charlestown Township on Sunday, April 20.
The field will be used for boys and girls lacrosse in the spring as well as football, flag football and field hockey for girls during the fall months.
PMYC, which allows youngsters to play sports at no charge, has increasing numbers in all sports and felt the need to add a field for additional space to help accommodate all the boys and girls from Phoenixville and surrounding communities.
PMYC is in its 53rd year of existence since being instituted way back in 1956 at various sites in the area. Youngsters who range in ages from 8 through 13 are eligible to participate in the program.
This move by PMYC is a positive step by officials to help enhance their program to benefit all children in the area. As numbers grown, needs and facilities need to expand at the same time.
Volunteers direct such programs and need as much as support as possible from members of the community to assist people who donate so much time and effort in coaching and directing sports to help keep our youth occupied in a learning experience.
Boys and girls lacrosse have benefitted the most of all. The boys are part of the fastest-growing sport in the United States and need a better place to perform. The better youth program will only serve to aid as a feeder program for the Phoenixville Area High School boys program with head coach Jim O’Brien that competes in the competitive Pioneer Athletic Conference.
The girls lacrosse program at PMYC is also relatively new and is an important feeder system for the scholastic team coached by Jen Foresta at the senior high school level. The best teams in the PAC-10 have had youth girls lacrosse teams for many years and Phoenixville is only now catching up to them with a feeder system to help girls succeed at the next level of play.
Improved venues should enhance the chances of young people honing their skills in various sports.

Posted by
Barry Sankey

LABOR CLASSIC BASKETBALL

Zach Wise, Phoenixville, Senior, Forward
Megan Bedard, Spring-Ford, Senior, Guard

Wise helped the Suburban boys win against Philadelphia and Bedard did the same for the girls Sunday at St. Joseph’s University on Hawk Hill in Philadelphia.
Wise and Bedard were both four-year varsity players at their respective schools.
Wise helped lead Phoenixville to two Pioneer Athletic Conference boys basketball championships in 2005 and 2007 during his career. Wise stepped to the forefront as the area’s leading scorer this season after playing in the shadows of Ryan Thomas, Jon Hogga and Jon Crabtree during the previous years of his career.
Wise will take his talents to Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, where he will join Thomas next season. Del Val has a new head coach in Casey Stitzel, who left Perkiomen Valley after a successful first year on the bench at guiding the Vikings. Stitzel is now the youngest coach at any level in men’s college basketball after starring at Lansdale Catholic High School.
After Stitzel was named to the post for the Aggies, he actively recruited Wise to attend the college. Wise hopes to help the Aggies struggling Division III program around.
Wise had a successful high school career and he should do likewise at the collegiate level as well. He has an effective inside and outside game around the basket on offense and has gradually improved his defensive skills, too.
Wise helped lead the Phantoms into the PAC-10 Final Four playoffs this year as Phoenixville recovered from early struggles in the season to qualify for the playoffs while defending their PAC-10 title from 2007..
Bedard helped anchor the Rams to their fourth straight PAC-10 championship. They also finished third in the District 1 Class AAAA playoffs this year after taking second place last winter.
Bedard handled the ball mostly as a point guard but also became the school’s career scoring leader among females with more than 1,000 points. She will be attending De Sales University, a Division III college in Center Valley near Allentown. There she will join former Spring-Ford teammate Kaila Wiand.
Bedard should also have a successful collegiate career because of her strong work ethic. She should make a smooth transition to the next level. She is adept at driving to the basket and getting fouled and can also shoot from the outside. Bedard is also a quick defensive player who can help shut down foes and grabbing steals.
Bedard and backcourt mate Allie Kakareka were both four-year starters at Spring-Ford, and both of them scored more than 1,000 career points, which is an unusual feat for one team. Kakareka has decided to play lacrosse at Division II Bloomsburg University for her college sport in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC).
Wise and Bedard both had the chance to play with and against other scholastic basketball stars at the Labor Classic. That gave them a good indication of the type of play they will be involved in at the next level.

Posted by
Barry Sankey

Phoenixville-Spring-Ford Baseball

Spring-Ford defeated neighborhood rival Phoenixville, 4-1, in Pioneer Athletic Conference baseball action Monday at Ram Stadium in Royersford.
Phoenixville scored one run in the first inning, but Spring-Ford came back with two runs in the fourth and two more in the fifth to win the ballgame.
The Phantoms managed just two hits off Spring-Ford left-handed pitcher Rich Guthridge, who struck out 10 batters and walked none in seven innings of work.
The Rams finished with five hits off Phoenixville left-hander Jake Waller, who worked 4 2/3 innings with three earned runs allowed, five walks and four strikeouts. Devon Landis and Zak Kissel relieved for the Phantoms.
Spring-Ford catcher Anthony Quintangeli went 2-for-3 with a double, one RBI and one run scored.
The Phantoms have now struggled with three straight losses to Pottstown, Owen J. Roberts and Spring-Ford following a win over Upper Perkiomen in their PAC-10 opener in Red Hill. Phoenixville hostsed Perkiomen Valley Wednesday afternoon and is home again on Friday against Lansdale Catholic.
Phoenixville’s offense has struggled during the stretch against some tough pitchers and will have to come around. The pitching has been satisfactory overall, but some defensive lapses have hurt the Phantoms. Phoenixville still has some younger players who are gaining experience so the Phantoms should keep improving as the year progresses.
Spring-Ford has been one of the better baseball teams in the PAC-10 in recent years along with Boyertown and Owen J. Roberts.

Posted by
Barry Sankey

PHOENIXVILLE OLD TIMERS

The Phoenixville Area Athletic Association (formerly Old Timers) is having its annual banquet Saturday night, April 5, at the No. 1 Fire House on Church Street in Phoenixville.
Longtime community sports activist Abdul Ford-Bey will be honored during the program portion of the event.
The Old Timers used to hold dinners twice a year, one in the fall and one in the spring, to renew acquaintances from the past and to honor former sports stars from the Phoenixville area, a living Hall of Famer in the fall and a deceased member during the spring.
Huge crowds used to jam the Polish Club on High Street and other sites to attend the dinners. However, since the membership consisted of older citizens, numbers gradually diminished. There has been little influx of younger members to maintain the numbers in the organization.
There is now just one banquet per year, if that, instead of two since membership and attendance dropped off so drastically.
The group decided to try to revive it this year in order to honor Ford-Bey for his work with the Phoenixville Marian Youth Club (PMYC) in football, basketball and field hockey as well as the Phoenixville Youth Babe Ruth League (PYBRL) for work with baseball and softball.
These dinners have always been fun, entertaining nights with notable guest speakers. I have covered many of these banquets.
It is nice to try to see the tradition maintained since Phoenixville has such a great history in athletics of all sorts, both boys and girls.

Posted by
Barry Sankey

SPRINT FOOTBALL

Sprint football gives college-aged players who weigh under 172 pounds a chance to still compete in football. It is played by the same rules as regular NCAA college football.
Phoenixville Area High School graduate Andrew Licwinko is a freshman at Mansfield University, which recently became the only public United States university to adopt a sprint football program.
The Mountaineers dropped their 115-year-old Division II collegiate program at the end of the 2006 season due to budgetary reasons. But there are still players on campus who desire to continue playing football.
Mansfield will start its sprint football schedule in the fall of 2008. Dan Davis was introduced as the school’s coach at a March press conference.
Sprint football may not be well-known to many people, but it has been in existence for more than 70 years. Mansfield has been accepted into the Collegiate Sprint Football League (CSFL), where it will compete with five other league members: Cornell, Penn, Princeton, Army and Navy.
Since there is a size limit, players can play multiple positions. Running backs, wide receivers, quarterbacks, tight ends, linemen, linebackers and defensive backs are almost interchangeable.
Licwinko weighs 160 pounds so he can easily make weight for sprint football. He had the same task during high school wrestling at Phoenixville, where grapplers are divided by weight classes.
This sprint football program gives Mansfield a chance to have a form of football without massive costs. The other colleges in the league have regular Division I-AA programs in the Ivy Leagued as well as the military academies besides the sprint program.
However, they are also bigger schools than Mansfield, which has just 3,000 students on campus but still wants to open its doors to prospective student-athletes who still have a goal of playing football.

Posted by
Barry Sankey