By Lori Brown
GRAHAMSVILLE — Last Friday night, Tri-Valley Central School students, friends, families and alumni joined together to either watch or participate in the annual Amy Paes Scholarship basketball game.
The event raised a total of $635, which will be used for a scholarship for one boy and one girl in the Tri-Valley Class of 2011 who was involved with the Bear Cub basketball program and will be moving on to college or a trade school.
Amy Paes passed away in the summer of 2003 after completing the fifth grade at Tri-Valley. Her classmates graduated from the district last June.
This event is a nice remembrance of Paes and honors the sixth-graders who have participated in the Bear Cub basketball program for the past eight weeks.
The sixth-grade girls started off the evening of basketball. They played four, six-minute quarters for their moving up game.
The Blue Team was coached by Scott Mickelson, Hauk Boyes and Aurora Boyes. The team members included Maura Kelly, Kacie Allison, Amanda Schwartz, and Kimberly Doyle. Missing from the event was Janine Bellacicco.
The Red Team, which was coached by Brent Lawrence, included Ashley Lawrence, Ariana Vidal, Caitlin Krum, J.J. Brown-Richmond and Nicole Beach.
Both teams played great basketball to end their season.
Next to take the court were the sixth-grade boys. Greg Botsford coached the Red Team, which included Mike Ryan, Michael Horos, Nick Mungeer, James Foster, Quintin Berteau and Josh Turk. Unable to attend the game was Bryan Boyes.
The Blue Team was coached by Nial Edwards and Patrick McHugh. The team consisted of Evan Edwards, Mike Devito, William Devito, Anthony Kessler, Josh Zieres, and Aidan McHugh.
Missing from the blue team were Brent VanAken and Gavin Simpson.
Both the blue and red teams played very well in their moving up game.
The winner of the evening’s 50/50 raffle was Kate Kelly and she unselfishly donated the money back to the scholarship fund.
Many people helped to make this annual event possible.
Referees for the games included Sabrena Smith, Erin Smith, Kaitlan Justiniano, Sam Tingley, Alex Brown, Ryan Ansbro and Scott Mickelson. The scorekeeper for the games was Greg Swarthout. Justin Swarthout helped run the clock and Jon Edwards was the public address announcer for the evening.
The final event of the night was the alumni game. A team of players who graduated from T-V in an odd year would take on a team of alumni who graduated during an even year in a game consisting of four 10-minute quarters.
The Blue Team (even-year graduates) attempted to defend its championship from last year’s alumni game. The team was coached by Tom Palmer. Members of this team included Khristian Newkirk (2010), Amanda Martin (’10), John Hamilton (1984), Bobby Beale (’10), Dean Winters (’10), Ted Degraw (’04), Ian Exner (’06), Derek Smith (’06) and Bo Murphy (’08).
The Red Team was coached by Jerry Stevens (1983) and the players included Brent Lawrence (1967), Kyle Humphrey (‘03), Joe Lee (1983), Andrew Yager (‘09), Tim Martin (‘09), Greg Botsford (1993), Tom Conjura (1997), Michael Kaplan (‘07) and Andrew Brooks (‘05).
Other than the 2010 graduates, most of the other players return to Grahamsville every March to play in this game. The Blue Team started strong, posting a 25-15 lead after the first quarter. The Blue Team continued to dominate in the second period and held a 51-39 advantage at halftime.
But coming out of the intermission, the Red Team had a burst of energy to tie the game up at 64-64.
However, the Blue Team prevailed, 91-77, to continue its winning streak.
Ian Exner was the top scorer for the Blue Team as he made seven 3-points shots on his way to 44 points. Teammate Ted DeGraw scored 13 points, including a trio of shots from beyond the arc.
For the Red Team, Kyle Humphrey and Tim Martin each scored 16 points. Brent Lawrence added 13 points, nine of which were scored on three successful 3-point shots.
“I would like to thank everyone for coming out to the Amy Paes Scholarship game,” Bear Cub Basketball Coordinator Jerry Stevens said. “I would like to thank Scott Mickelson, Cindy Mickelson, Faith Dymond and Janet Dymond for all their help. Also I would like to thank Superintendent Tom Palmer for his first year coaching the Blue Team.”
After 15 years, Stevens is retiring from running the Bear Cub Basketball program. His replacement, Janet Dymond, awarded him with a plaque for his many years of dedication to the program.