The Laker/Lutz News

Serving Pasco since 1981/Serving Lutz since 1964

Special to The Laker/Lutz News

Bulls squad a work in progress

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By Eugenio Torrens

Jeremy Calzone has been with the Wiregrass Ranch boys basketball program since its inception in 2006.

Rico Kerney, averaging 29 points and 15.5 rebounds per game, is the lone returning starter from a Wiregrass Ranch team that made the postseason for the first time ever last year.

Starting the 2011-12 season, the sixth-year Bulls coach is going through a bit of déjà vu. Calzone said when the school opened, that it was a hodgepodge of transfers from other schools starting the program. Three transfers to this year’s squad have him adjusting on the fly — again.

“It’s almost like having to try to mold everybody into that new team,” Calzone said. “I think that’s been our biggest issue. (Transfers) are so used to something else.”

Wiregrass Ranch (2-4) is coming off its most successful season in its history, winning the Class 4A-District 8 championship, making the postseason for the first time ever and advancing to the regional semifinals.

In addition to transfers Christian Parra, Dimarco Burgess and Marcus Guzman, Wiregrass Ranch has had to cope with the graduation of seven seniors, four starters, from the history-making Bulls of last year.

The only familiar face from last season is Rico Kerney — a junior who was the only starting underclassman on a then-senior-laden team.

Kerney, who is averaging a team-high 29 points and 15.5 boards per game, admitted the team has a lot of work to do, especially under the shadow of a team that went 22-8 last season.

Elijah Blackman, who made the jump to the varsity squad this year, stressed his team has to work hard to have any chance at mirroring last year’s success.

Kerney added he is trying to be a leader on a team lacking in returners while also fighting to maintain the program’s recent success.

“I’m trying to be the leader that I need to be to keep Wiregrass basketball to where the guys that graduated got it,” Kerney continued. “They built this program up from nothing and now that they’re gone, I feel like — since I played with them — I feel like I have to keep it up. I’m trying.”

Kerney can’t do it on his own, and he is looking for a team effort to right a tough start that has seen a porous defense surrender an average of 84 points per game, including a whopping 98 points in losses.

Calzone and his players all echoed that defense is the main priority at practice. Offense has come pretty easily at an 80-points-per-game clip with the influx of transfers and younger players.

“We should be in the 90s every game,” said Calzone, who strives to have a balanced team with four or five guys in double digits.

Because the team lacks significant size in the post, the Bulls have to rely on their speed and the full-court press.

That’s where Parra, a Wesley Chapel High transfer, shines.

“Any time you get a player that can play, he’s going to fit in,” said Calzone of Parra.

Parra, a point guard, has acclimated quickly. He is second on the team in points (15.7) and third in assists (2.2) per game. The junior led Wesley Chapel in scoring with 15.4 a year ago.

The former Wildcat said he has tried not thinking about transferring to a rival school. He said he had to move because of new district zones.

The Bulls have welcomed three transfers, including junior Christian Parra who comes from rival Wesley Chapel.

“It’s not my rivalry. … They’re still my friends no matter what. I just wish them good luck, I’m going to go my hardest,” Parra said.

Junior guard Elijah Blackman is another new face to the team, making the leap from junior varsity. He reiterated what some of his teammates said — the only way to hope to match what Wiregrass Ranch accomplished last year is through blood, sweat and tears.

“We know we have the skill,” Blackman said. “We have the IQ. We have the speed and everything, but we have to work hard. If we had a banner of how we should do things this year, it’s work hard.”

Calzone isn’t making excuses despite the less-than-desired start and plans to right the Bulls by Christmas.

“Hopefully sooner,” Calzone said. “If it’s after Christmas and we haven’t figured it out yet, we’re not doing our job as coaches and they’re not doing their jobs as players.”

Wiregrass Ranch hosts Freedom on Dec. 13 at 8 p.m. The Bulls play the next night, Dec. 14, against Sunlake at 7:30 p.m. before welcoming Gaither on Friday, Dec. 16 at 7:30 p.m.

— All stats as recorded to Maxpreps.com by coaches.

Steinbrenner shuts out Gaither in district showdown

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By Kyle LoJacono

The Steinbrenner girls soccer team showed it is still the team to beat in the area with a 4-0 victory at Gaither on Dec. 6.

Steinbrenner senior forward Cici Gonzalez goes up for a header during the Warriors 4-0 victory at Gaither on Dec. 6.

The win keeps the Warriors (7-3-1) undefeated in Class 4A-District 8 play, putting them in position to finish as the No. 1 or 2 seed entering the district tournament at Freedom starting Jan. 17.

“What really matters is what happens in late January and February, so you don’t want to peak too early,” said Steinbrenner first-year coach Robert Woodard. “You want to build up. We’re pretty much where we need to be right now.”

The Warriors are the defending 4A state champions, but the Cowboys (5-4-1) are also coming off a deep playoff run that saw them reach the 5A regional finals.

“They’re a very good team,” said Gaither coach Trevor Scott. “I mean they won states last year. It’s tough playing a team like that and we came out flat. They were able to control the ball because we were flat. … That’s OK because we know we’ll see them again, and we’ll get them in districts. Our players need to use this feeling to get ready for when we play them again.”

The Warriors controlled play for the majority of the contest, forcing the Cowboys to give up the ball seemingly as soon as they got possession.

Freshman midfielder Jessica Taylor scored a goal and recorded an assist to help the Warriors defeat district rival Gaither on Dec. 6.

“We’ve been working on our formations the last couple weeks,” said Steinbrenner sophomore midfielder Danielle Eule. “We want to be in the right place to stop them and turn it up and attack.”

The ball control negated Gaither’s strength of setting up its speedy forwards for breakout chances.

“The key to it is playing in their half of the field,” Woodard said. “If someone gets the ball at midfield and carries it all the way down with all the bumps in the field and people screaming and gets past Stephanie (Hirsch) too, then God bless them.”

Hirsch, a junior goalkeeper, made six saves to preserve the shutout.

Gaither’s best chance to score came 11 minutes into the second half. The Cowboys got back-to-back corner kicks, but were unable to capitalize.

The Warriors opened up the scoring on their first corner kick opportunity, which came in the fifth minute. Freshman midfielder Jessica Taylor took the kick, which was buried home by Eule.

Senior forward Cici Gonzalez added to the lead in the 25th minute off a throw-in by senior forward Taylor Valley. Gonzalez slipped past a Gaither defender to set up a clear shot at the net to score her team-leading fifth goal of the year.

Cowboys sophomore goalkeeper Amanda High stopped the bleeding, making four saves in the first and another five in the second, but injured her right hip making a save 24 minutes after halftime forcing her from the contest.

Gaither’s leading scorer Taylor Meek, who has eight goals this year, was kept under wraps by Steinbrenner’s defense on Dec. 6.

“Amanda kept us in it until she got hurt,” Scott said. “She’s given everything in every game. She just goes, goes and goes. She never wants to come out.”

Steinbrenner wasted little time taking advantage of new Gaither keeper Kelsey Ristad. Taylor found the back of the net off an assist from junior midfielder Marley Opila less than a minute after Ristad entered the game. The Warriors scored again about a minute later on an own goal credited to Valley.

“We’re trying to get our offense in different ways because I don’t want someone to gimmick us at the end of the season,” Woodard said. “I don’t want someone to come up with a gimmick defense to stop us. If I build everything around Cici and they come up with a way to stop her and we don’t have anything else, I really don’t like that idea. I want to be able to build something where everyone adds to the action.”

Eule said that flexibility on offense and a new emphasis on controlling the pace of play have her excited about the team’s chances at defending its state title.

“I think we’re a better team this year,” Eule said. “We’re playing really well together and improving every day.”

Steinbrenner plays Bloomingdale on Friday, Dec. 16 at 3 p.m. in the first round of the Sarasota Holiday Tournament. Gaither hosts Wiregrass Ranch in another 4A-8 contest on Tuesday, Dec. 13 at 6 p.m.

 

Freedom sneaks by Wiregrass Ranch

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Coming into this season, the one relatively unknown girls soccer squad in Class 4A-District 8 was Wiregrass Ranch.

Bulls junior defender Lauren Gordon, left, and Patriots senior forward Jenna Stiling fight for the ball in their 4A-8 contest on Dec. 6.

After a 1-0 loss at home to district opponent Freedom on Dec. 6, the Bulls (7-4) are proving they aren’t ready to just be brushed aside even if they didn’t match the Patriots (5-2-1) step for step.

“I think it was a pretty even battle,” said Freedom coach Jenna Ball. “I feel like we had a lot of opportunities, we just weren’t capitalizing on our opportunities. We know the things that we need to work on and we’re going to get back at it tomorrow and work on it, because we have such a strong district.”

Jenna is referring to a district that includes four playoff teams from last year, including the Patriots. Steinbrenner, the defending 4A state champions, and Wiregrass Ranch finished as their respective district champs, while Gaither snagged a runner-up spot.

Despite feeling her team missed a number of chances, Jenna had to be happy when her Patriots got on the board with the first and only goal in the 21st minute thanks to a shot by senior forward Jenna Stiling.

The Bulls had some close calls, and junior goalkeeper Dayton Wetherby had a clean sheet after Stiling’s goal — including a nifty one-handed save off a bullet aimed at the upper left corner of the net in the 69th minute from Hanna Seybold — but Wiregrass Ranch couldn’t sneak one past Patriots senior keeper Emily Ball.

Emily Ball

“Sometimes we depend on her a little too much and that kind of shows,” Jenna said. “She did an excellent job and it’s just great having such a leader in the back for us.”

Emily added, “There’s always a rivalry, especially with goalkeepers you know in the area. When one makes a good save, you want to make a good save. But you have to keep composed in the second half.”

In the 60th minute, the Bulls came agonizingly close to tying, but Seybold helped out Emily by using her body to deflect the equalizer.

Wiregrass Ranch stepped up its game in the second half, tallying several scoring opportunities.

“Quite honestly, I just think we didn’t play with enough intensity early on and I think it took too long for us to bring up our intensity,” said Wiregrass Ranch coach Erin Dodd. “Had we played the way we played the entire second half the whole game, maybe it would be a different outcome.”

Wiregrass Ranch hosted Hudson on Dec. 12, but results were not available by press time.

The Bulls travel to district rival Gaither on Tuesday, Dec. 13, the same day Freedom takes on 4A-8 opponent Chamberlain. Both games start at 6 p.m.

Basketball in his blood

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Erik Thomas keeps up family tradition

By Kyle LoJacono

Wesley Chapel High junior Erik Thomas learned from a young age his passion is basketball, and it’s a good thing considering the family he was born into.

Erik Thomas

The 6-foot-4, 205-pound forward is younger brother of Sthefany Thomas, who scored a Pasco County girls record 2,563 points while playing at Wesley Chapel. He is also the son of James Thomas, who played forward for two seasons for the Atlanta Hawks.

“Basketball means the world to my family,” Erik said. “My dad played in the NBA and later in Europe and Argentina, and then my sister was a superstar here. Basketball is basically in my blood. As soon as I came into this life I’ve loved basketball.”

Erik can even attribute being born to basketball. James moved to Argentina in order to continue playing professionally. It was in the South American country where he met his wife and Erik’s mother, Fabiana.

“She played basketball and she went to a basketball class that he was teaching,” Erik said. “That’s how they met.”

Erik said his first memory with basketball was at age 3 when he participated in one of his dad’s classes. The family moved to Wesley Chapel when he was 6, where his passion for the game only grew.

“I was always the tallest kid in my class, so I played down low when I was young,” Erik said. “Then in middle school I played point guard.”

It was when Erik was in middle school that Sthefany started to shine on the Wildcats court. The Clemson University graduate plays shooting guard, and Erik said he tried to model his game after the way she played on the perimeter.

Erik Thomas goes up for a rebound during a recent game this season. The junior has more than 300 rebounds during his high school career.

“I was at every one of her games,” Erik said. “Everything she did I looked up to her.”

Then Erik started growing to the point where playing guard was basically out of the question.

“I hit my growth spurt in eighth grade,” Erik said. “I actually grew really fast and when it first happened it was really hard to run up and down the court. When I got to Wesley Chapel High School coach (Doug) Greseth got me in shape to play down low, and he also got me bigger and stronger.”

His newly found height forced him to incorporate more of his father’s style of power play in the post into his own game.

Greseth said his ability to play inside and outside makes him a matchup problem for any defender.

“The sky is the limit for him,” Greseth said. He then added, “The one good thing about him is most people think because he’s big, he doesn’t have good hands. He has really good hands. He can catch the ball and pass the ball. He’s got all the tools that a lot of big guys just don’t have. We give him a little bit of freedom on the perimeter, but he’s really hard to handle on the inside.”

Last season Erik put up 15.2 points per game while adding 220 rebounds, 75 assists, 52 steals and 21 blocks.

“He’s a big factor for us,” said senior guard Julian Vann. “He helps us down in the post and gets us on the scoreboard. Hopefully we can feed him the ball more this year and let him show off his size and strength.”

Erik’s efforts made him the All-Laker/All-Lutz News Boys Basketball Player of the Year last season, but he is not satisfied with his game.

“Right now my strength is getting to the basket and drawing contact fouls,” Erik said. “The thing I’m working on getting better at is driving with my left hand and shooting with defense on me. I’ve been spending a lot of time with those two during the offseason.”

Erik said he would like to play basketball at a Division I college, and if a career in the NBA happens it “would be a dream come true.”

Erik and the Wildcats play at Fivay on Tuesday, Dec. 13 at 7:30 p.m.

—All stats as recorded to Maxpreps.com by coaches.

Noble guiding Warriors back to top after historic season

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By Jeff Odom

Laker/Lutz News Correspondent

For a program entering its third year, the Steinbrenner wrestling team has seen more than its fair share of success since the school’s inaugural season in 2009-10.

The Warriors won the program’s first district championship last year. The four-point victory in the Class 1A-District 9 meet also ended Jesuit’s 10-year stranglehold on such titles. Steinbrenner also advanced a school-record five athletes to the 1A state tournament.

The Steinbrenner wrestling team placed third at the Raider Invitational last weekend.

The Warriors lost nearly all of their state tournament line-up to graduation, but coach Paul Noble said the team still has the opportunity to compete for its second district crown.

“We spend a lot of time working on our bread and butter and we have a lot of kids who are committed,” Noble said. “I don’t think we have star power, but overall as a team, we’re about as good as we were a year ago.”

The team also lost a host of leadership after the departures of seniors Josh Fulford, Cody Dunham, Ryon Keith and Tyler Reed, but Noble said this year’s group is rising to the challenge of laying the foundation for a winning tradition by sticking to the basics.

“We expect to be good on our feet, and a lot of coaches will say that, but the proof is in the pudding,” Noble said. “If you come to our matches, we attack on our feet. If other teams fear you on your feet, if they don’t think they can take you down, then they don’t think they can win and that’s a mental deal.”

With the new season comes a new slate of 10 district opponents, including Freedom and Gaither, as Steinbrenner moves into 2A-7.

The Patriots are the team most likely to prevent the Warriors repeating as district champs. Freedom lost its two state qualifiers, Andrew Ford and Trey Lawson, to gradation, but returns most of its other key wrestlers.

Noble said the opponents may have changed, but the winning mentality has not.

“(The win over Jesuit last season) sold the kids on what it takes and made them believe we can win, and that belief is still there,” Noble said. “We’ve taken a couple of lumps this year and we lost a couple of matches and we haven’t been at full strength yet, but we should be when the conference tournament begins.”

Senior Jesse Florentino said Noble has helped lead the team to become one of the best in the area in just a short amount of time, and the athletes have shown enough poise to help fuel its high expectations.

“We have a lot of good freshmen and other guys that showed promise,” Florentino said. “We have a really good lineup again, we didn’t lose many guys.”

Noble, the Warriors’ only coach in program history, faces a different challenge than maintaining the Warriors’ budding wrestling tradition. He drives a daily commute from his farm in Plant City to Lutz, which he roughly estimates is a 35-40 minute drive one way. However, Noble says the distance isn’t an issue and has actually benefitted his own children.

“We spend a lot of time (at school) and the one good thing about wrestling is, that it is more family oriented than any other sport,” Noble said. “(My kids) are always around, they compete and they wrestle and in the offseason they can wrestle with the high school kids and they both like it and that makes it easier on the family.”

Noble also added, “This is a great school, plain and simple. This is the best school I’ve ever worked at and I worked at East Bay for a long time and then in Vail, Colorado, which was even more affluent than this school … it’s just a really good place and I plan on staying here so that my kids can go to school here.”

The Warriors next travel to Sickles on Friday, Dec. 16 for the Western Conference American Division Tournament at 5 p.m.

 

Gifts from cheerleading

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Taylor Dec learns about life from cheering, coaching

By Kyle LoJacono

Seven years ago Taylor Dec made a seemingly minor decision that has since made her into the person she is today.

It was in fifth grade that Taylor first became a cheerleader. She started with the Lutz Chiefs program, progressed to a competitive club called the Florida Wildcats in middle school and moved on to cheering at Gaither High.

The Lutz Chiefs midgets cheerleading team after winning the Best of the Bay competition this year.

“I think it’s really shaped me as a person,” Taylor said of cheering. “It’s given me a lot more confidence than I would have if I did any other sport. … It teaches you how to work hard and take what other people say, like their constructive criticism, to make you better.”

Taylor feels so strongly about cheering that she started coaching the Chiefs midgets team, for girls ages 11-13, last year as a way to teach kids about the activity she loves so much.

“I really enjoyed coaching and coming up with the routines,” Taylor said. “I volunteered to do it and I felt like I could give really good advice to the younger girls.”

Taylor put in about 16 hours per week between Gaither’s squad and coaching, amazing considering she was not too thrilled with the idea of signing up for cheerleading seven years ago.

“At first I didn’t really want to cheer,” Taylor said. “My friends had to talk me into it because they were cheering for Lutz. Then I just fell in love with it. It’s so fast paced and you can always improve.”

Taylor’s mother, Lori, said she has seen a great deal of growth in her daughter since she started cheering.

“The biggest thing I’ve seen in her develop is her leadership skills,” Lori said. “Being able to take directions and help whatever team she is on get to their goals. That’s not to say she’s had a leadership role on every team she’s been on, but her leadership in life has emerged.

“As a parent you hope your child can find something that they love so much that they want to do whether they aren’t feeling good or tired or whatever,” Lori continued. “You want them to find something they can be that passionate about and for Taylor it was cheerleading.”

Lori coached with her daughter, but Taylor led all the practices and choreographed the performances.

“It was really very touching,” said Lori of watching Taylor coach. “My husband has always been a coach and I’ve been in some support position, but watching her turn into a coach was really heartwarming. … I’ve seen her develop so much patience from coaching through mentoring these girls. It’s been a great experience and all the girls really love her. That’s been really rewarding to me.”

It was also rewarding for all of Taylor’s pupils, including Alex Zayas who started cheering last year for the Chiefs.

“She always kept us together,” said Zayas, a seventh-grader at Martinez Middle. “She was one of those good coaches who never made any of us cry or anything. She was really determined to make us better. Most of the girls had never cheered before, but by the end of the year we were all a lot better.”

The Chiefs were unable to win a competition during Taylor’s first year coaching in 2010, but the squad claimed championships in all three of the events it participated in this season. The first was the Best of the Bay, where Lutz was recognized for having the best choreography.

The Chiefs followed that up with titles at the Gulf Coast Cheer Classic and the Tampa Bay Youth Football League’s cheer offs.

“It was so exciting to see them win three events,” Taylor said. “I was so proud of them because they’ve worked really hard all year. … This year’s group of girls was so motivated and talented. I just hope they continue cheering because they’re really good at it.”

Zayas said she plans to continue cheering at least in part because of what Taylor taught her the last two years.

“She was always there for us,” Zayas said. “We always liked going to practice because of her.”

Taylor said this is her final year as a coach and cheerleader. She could not pick out one favorite memory from her time cheering because there have been so many highlights.

“I’ve loved competing in all the events for club cheering,” Taylor said. “I love competing. For high school I’ve loved cheering at all the games. They’ve all been fun. For coaching it was just seeing them get better each practice and seeing them win this year.”

Kayli Keough’s career night

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Land O’ Lakes High graduate and University of Central Florida (UCF) women’s basketball player Kayli Keough set a career-high in scoring by pouring in 23 points to help the Knights defeat Bethune-Cookman University 66-49 on Nov. 30.

UCF women's basketball player and Land O' Lakes High graduate Kayli Keough scored a career-high 23 points to help the Knights beat Bethune-Cookman on Nov. 30.

“I was just getting in a rhythm as the game went along,” Keough said. “The coaches have been encouraging me to be aggressive and stay aggressive. I was able to find my spots.”

Keough, redshirt junior forward, went 10-of-16 shooting and hit all three of her free-throw attempts in the contest. She also added six rebounds in her 33 minutes on the court.

“We knew the middle of the zone would be open and Kayli would have to knock down shots. She does it every day in practice,” said UCF coach Joi Williams. “We have a lot of confidence with her shooting from that spot. She played without thinking a lot and that’s a good thing. We found her in the seam. … We didn’t do a good job in the first half of reversing the basketball and in the second half that was the difference. Then, we found her in the middle and she knocked down the shot.”

Keough is in her first season with the Knights. She spent her first two college years at Florida State University and had to sit out the 2010-11 campaign because of NCAA transfer rules.

Keough is averaging 9.7 points and 3.1 rebounds per contest through UCF’s first seven games. She has played in all of the Kinghts’ contests this season, including making four starts.

 

Pasco opts for dual park plan

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By Kyle LoJacono

Pasco County commissioners figured why build one park when they could have two.

The board submitted two unanimous 5-0 votes to fund the construction of a pair of new county parks — one in Wesley Chapel near The Shops at Wiregrass and the other in Aripeka in Pasco’s northwest corner.

“Two 5-0 votes,” said chairwoman Ann Hildebrand. “Who saw that coming?”

Hildebrand’s sentiments refer to the on-again, off-again scenarios the county has had during the last three years as it tried to build a large sports complex.

The original plans were to fund such a facility in Odessa near Starkey Park, which would have been run by Sportsplex USA. The California-based company agreed to operate the complex, but backed out of the deal earlier this year.

The commissioners had been looking for a new place to spend $11 million earmarked for generating tourism within Pasco. The original plan was to spend the entire pot developing the Wesley Chapel complex, which will be called Fields at Wiregrass.

However, Commissioner Jack Mariano, whose District 5 includes Aripeka, became an outspoken supporter of building a wakeboarding park with part of the money available.

“It’s better to have two parks bring people to Pasco than just one,” Mariano said.

The new plan is to spend $2.5 million at the Aripeka park and put the remaining $8.5 million into the Wesley Chapel site. The west coast facility would cater to extreme sports enthusiasts, while the east Pasco complex will have multiple fields to draw in large sports tournaments as well as families.

The wakeboarding park will use a fixed cable system to pull people around a lake and through obstacles like ramps and rails.

Commissioner Ted Schrader had been against the Aripeka site, but changed his tune after hearing a presentation from its designers in late November.

“I’m intrigued enough to see if we can make it happen,” Schrader said. “I’m convinced there are probably people who would be happy to come out there and spend their money.”

Hildebrand said there is one lingering question with the extreme park that has yet to be answered.

“I’d like to know how much liability we have if someone gets hurt,” Hildebrand said. “I like the idea, but I still have a lot of unanswered questions.”

Mariano said there wouldn’t be any more liability than if someone got hurt at one of the more conventional facilities like the Land O’ Lakes Recreation Complex or the future Fields at Wiregrass.

The decision by the commissioners does put some question into how the future Wesley Chapel sports complex will look. The Porter family, the owners of the original Wiregrass Ranch, submitted a proposal to build a 160-acre, $25-million facility just north of The Shops at Wiregrass along Bruce B. Downs Boulevard.

The project called for 12 multiuse fields for football, soccer, lacrosse and other sports activities to support large regional and national tournaments. It also includes three MLB-regulation sized baseball fields and another three for Little League games.

Other amenities would have included fishing areas, hiking trails and a dock to launch canoes and kayaks, but all plans were based on the idea that the county would kick in $11 million.

Wiregrass developer J.D. Porter, the son of the ranch’s original owner Don, said he was pleased with the vote even if it did not give Fields at Wiregrass exactly what he was asking for.

“This allows us the flexibility to come up with a business plan that makes sense,” Porter said.

Porter said his family envisions a complex similar to Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, which hosts more than 40 youth sports events annually.

While the county will pay for part of the construction, the Porters would handle the operating costs and any additional money needed to build the complex. Plans call for some level of public access, but other areas will be operated as a private business.

Porter’s plan included requiring teams competing in events at the complex to stay at hotels within Pasco, which would generate additional tax revenue for the county. He added it would take two years to build the complex, which could be ready to host tournaments by spring break in 2014.

 

 

Saint Leo swimmers claim conference honors

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Saint Leo University (SLU) swept the Sunshine State Conference (SSC) Swimmer of the Week awards after the performances of Sandra Stopczynska and Chris Canene at the SCAD Invitational on Dec. 1-3.

Stopczynska, a junior from Warsaw, Poland, swam the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke events in 1:07.09 and 2:23.85, respectively. Those times are the fastest of any SSC woman this year.

Canene, a junior from Naperville, Illinois, finished the 100 breaststroke in 56.78, setting a new program record. He followed that up with a 2:04.67 in the 200 breaststroke, the best time for any conference man this season.

Canene also helped set three program records in relay events at the SCAD Invitational, including the 200 freestyle, 400 medley and 800 freestyle races.

The Lions men’s and women’s swim teams concluded the three-day event finishing sixth and seventh, respectively. The men totaled 252 points, while the women collected 96. Nine teams competed in this year’s invite, with Wingate University taking the top slot in both men’s and women’s competition.

SLU returns to action on Jan. 3 at the OB Invitational in Key West.

Bringing learning to life

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Veterans Elementary children get up close with nature

 

By B.C. Manion

 

Veterans Elementary is a school where “Caterpillar Crossing” signs are used to prevent the creeping crawlers from being crushed by kids and adults.

It’s also a place where children can get a firsthand look at the life cycle of butterflies – watching how they transform from a caterpillar to a chrysalis to a creature with wings.

“You should have seen it when the caterpillars were out,” said Lorilie Jani, who takes care of the school’s butterfly garden. “At the end of October, we saw our caterpillars starting to show up, and by the first week in November we were on caterpillar patrol, as they were everywhere,” said Jani, who is the school’s plant manager.

The school’s morning news programs alerted everyone on campus to keep an eye out for the caterpillars to keep from crushing them, Jani said.

The children were excited about saving the caterpillars. They would tell Jani: “There’s two over there. There’s one here. Oh, that one got squished.”

The garden’s caretaker also began cutting branches of milkweed that were loaded with caterpillars and putting them in a butterfly hatchery that she built.

Jani had so many caterpillars it was hard to keep them fed.

She pointed to stalks in the garden: “This is what’s left of our milkweed. Look how they demolished it,” said Jani, who appreciates the kindness of teachers who brought in milkweed from home to replenish her supply.

 

The butterfly hatchery also served as protection for the caterpillars from predators. The lid of the wooden box is covered with green, pod-like chrysalides awaiting their transformation into butterflies.

Deana Wolkov, a teaching intern, said it’s great to have a classroom next door to the butterfly garden.

The kindergartners she teaches “are very interested to see what’s happening,” she said. The class has been learning about butterflies and having the 12- by-300 foot garden next door provides an excellent resource for teaching, she said.

“For them to actually see it and seeing the transformation makes a big difference in their learning,” she said. “There’s nothing like seeing it.”

Jani gets tremendous satisfaction from helping children learn and by helping to bring a bit of beauty to the school campus.

She said she and helpers – including children and adults – created the garden from seeds. The butterfly garden came about after devastating freezes took out the native plants that were planted on campus when the school opened in 2008.

Jani credits Deb Hamilton, Bob Stalnaker and Bill Wampler, three master gardener volunteers, for being enormously helpful in creating the butterfly garden.

The master gardeners made podcasts to teach the youngsters about planting the seeds and also pitched in with the planting.

Each classroom was given 22 starter cups and seeds, Jani said.

Plants in the garden include purple coneflowers, flax, Johnny-jump-ups, salvia, cosmos, morning glory, snow in summer, foxglove, maiden pink, salvia, tropical milkweed, Shasta daily and cardinal pipevine. All of the plants were grown from seed.

At its peak, the garden was beautiful, Jani said.

“It brought more butterflies than ever,” Jani said.

All of the seeds and supplies used for the garden were paid for from funds raised through recycling newspaper and cardboard.

While pleased with the garden’s progress, Jani has already set her sights on making some improvements next year.

For one thing, she plans to change the location of the greenhouse next year – to keep it out of the path of soccer balls.

She’s also planning to build a bigger butterfly hatchery.