HSMSE Lady Dragons earn first girls' basketball playoff victory in school history

Lady Dragons after their victory / HSMSE Sports

The Lady Dragons of the High School for Math, Science and Engineering felt right at home Thursday evening in their first round PSAL B Division girls’ basketball playoff game at South Bronx Prep. The Lady Dragons were unaffected by the rabid supporters of South Bronx Prep en route to a 56-35 victory.

The Lady Dragons, who were forced to play as the home team on the road due to a scheduling conflict with City College, came out with a furious full court press that put them up 6-0 after the first two minutes of the game. It was a lead they would never relinquish.

“I think they were zoned in more than anything,” said head coach David Scheiman. “They were just emotionally ready.”

Prep’s Cougars cut the Lady Dragons lead to five points one minute into the fourth quarter, narrowing the score to 36-31; however, they couldn’t get any closer due to the relentless pressure of HSMSE’s defense. With five minutes left in the game, sophomore Hillary Rodriguez hit a three pointer, stole the ensuing inbounds pass, and immediately scored on a lay-up to put the Lady Dragons ahead 43-31. Her five-second, five-point barrage, effectively secured the first playoff win in the Manhattan school’s history.

Hillary Rodriguez / HSMSE Sports

Standing in the way of the Lady Dragons playoff run are the third-seeded Phoenix of Millennium High School. The Phoenix posted a regular season record of 15-1, easily conquering the Manhattan South Division. The two teams will face off on Thursday, February 26, 2015 at John Jay Campus’ Gym in Brooklyn.

With the spring break approaching, Coach Scheiman will let the team enjoy a much needed vacation before focusing their energies on Millennium.

“When they get back to school,” Scheiman said, “it’s time to hit the ground running in preparation.”

Team	1	2	3	4				Total
HS For Math, Science and Engineering @ CCNY	15	9	12	20				56
South Bronx Preparatory	9	8	12	6				35

HS For Math, Science and Engineering @ CCNY
Player	Asst	Rebounds O-T	Fg2	Fg3	Ftm-Fta	Points
ALEX WEST	6	2-4	4	1	2-5	13
ANNABELLE SHULTZ	3	10-21	11	0	4-13	26
ANYA MARCHANT	0	4-12	2	0	0-2	4
GALIT WIENER	0	2-6	1	0	0-0	2
HILLARY RODRIGUEZ	0	4-10	3	1	0-0	9
JADE ARDINEZ	0	1-1	1	0	0-0	2
Total	9	23-54	22	2	6-20	56

South Bronx Preparatory
Player	Asst	Rebounds O-T	Fg2	Fg3	Ftm-Fta	Points
ANGIE ORTIZ ERAZO	6	0-0	2	0	0-1	4
BIANCA MONTANEZ	0	0-0	0	0	0-0	0
DAWN FRANKLIN	1	12-27	4	0	0-0	8
DEBBY SILVA	0	0-0	0	0	0-0	0
DIAMOND FULLARD	0	0-4	1	0	0-0	2
IVANA MONTANO	0	5-5	0	0	0-0	0
KATERA ROBINSON	1	1-7	7	0	0-2	14
SKYLAR HAWKINS	0	0-0	0	0	0-0	0
TAYLOR HAWKINS	0	0-0	1	1	0-0	5
ZAHRA MEDINA	0	0-0	1	0	0-0	2
Total	8	18-43	16	1	0-3	35

HSMSE Lady Dragons reach PSAL Class B girls' soccer playoff finals

HSMSE girls' soccer team - Lisa Gordis

The High School for Math, Science and Engineering girls’ soccer team won 6-1 in their 2014 PSAL Class B semi-final match against Herbert H. Lehman High School on November 11, 2014.  Their victory sets up a final match against Julia Richman Educational Campus at 10AM on Sunday November 9th at Randall's Island Field 10. The game will be broadcasted live online via the NFHS Network.

The Dragons comfortable win was a result of a combination of constant hustle, an aggressive mindset, and their experience in the playoffs.

“This is the best team we've ever had at MSE,” said coach Regina Zafonte. “They know how to channel their nerves into positive energy and do amazing things. These guys are now experienced playoff players and can handle the pressure.”

Freshman midfielder Alex West was seemingly everywhere on the pitch. West controlled the midfield with her aggressiveness and superb ball handling. When given the opportunity, West took shots from outside of the box, resulting in two spectacular goals. Despite her tremendous impact on both the game and the season, West remained humble in victory.

"Being aggressive, man marking their best player, and getting the step ahead by scoring the first two goals in the start [won us the match]," said West.

Another player who embodied the team’s hustle mentality was junior forward Galit Wiener. All three of her goals in the game came after sprinting for either crosses or deflections off of Lehman’s goalkeeper.

"We all came out determined," said Wiener. "We've been to the playoffs before and have been let down. We knew it could happen again and we've come so far already, so we wanted to give it our best. Everyone played 100%."

The Lady Dragons’ back line was just as impressive as their offense. The defense didn't even give Lehman a shot on goal for the first 30 minutes of the game. In fact, the most pressure sophomore goalkeeper Annabelle Shultz faced were from five corners that were easily cleared due to the great defending. The only slip up was a late goal, but the Lady Dragons were already up 6-0 at that point.

“Our defense was impenetrable," said Zafonte. “They were first to the ball and didn't allow anybody to get by them.”

The team's push to the finals has been a result of both quality leadership and great team chemistry. If the continue to play with the same sense of urgency and aggressiveness in the final, the team could bring HSMSE its first citywide varsity championship in school history.

"We have very good chances [in the final]," said West. "We're very good together working as a team and we're good at stepping up to the challenge."

The life of an olympic athlete

Sarah Robles / Otagenki.com

Olympic athletes have a rigorous training schedule and dedicate their lives to their sport, but what is not as immediately obvious are their financial struggles. Often, Olympic athletes depend solely on the funding of their sponsors to get through their training, leaving them to find another source of income to provide for their basic needs.

“Heading into the Sochi Games, some of the USA’s elite athletes live below the poverty line,” Kelly Whiteside wrote  in a 2013 USA TODAY Sports article.

Sarah Robles, an olympic weight lifter, is one of the many Olympic athletes that struggled economically through most of her Olympic training. Her priorities shifted from funding her Olympic journey to supporting her basic needs of food and shelter. The only way she was able to continue her training was through donations made by people close to her, and her motivation for success.

Olympic athletes are faced with the problem of their life after sport. An Olympic athlete dedicates many years of his/her life to training, leaving many without a plan of what to do next. After retiring from a sport, there is a major adjustment to make from practicing everyday, to pursuing a job and not being able to play their sport as much.

“For world-class athletes who have focused their lives on training, their next Olympian task has no direct path: Readjusting to a routine outside competitive sports and creating a new life that may or may not involve the limelight,” Raissa Ioussouf wrote in a 2012 article for the Huffington Post.

Olympians have to find something else to occupy their time with after they retire, since they do not exercise as much. Before their Olympic careers end, Olympians have very busy schedules. In preparation for big competitions such as the Olympics, Olympians commit most of their day to training and leading a healthy life. Aside from just playing their sport, Olympians have a lot of other training to do such as weightlifting and conditioning to stay fit for their season.

“I usually swim, bike and run every day and do strength and conditioning work two or three days a week.” Helen Jenkins, an Olympic triathlete, said in a 2012 Sport Wale article.

Part of what makes Olympians so valuable and admirable is that they do what is hard for many people by going beyond what is thought humans can do. Although what the Olympians achieve is apparent, what is less clear, is the amount of time they spend training for their success and the difficulty it takes to get there.

Written by Asimina Hamakiotes and Harry Smith

The growing Olympics

All the host cities of the Winter Olympics / Wikimedia Commons

The modern Olympic games have grown in scale exponentially since its beginning in 1896. More countries participate now and there is a greater sense of equality in both gender and race. The games are a much more accurate measure for who is the best of the world due to these changes.

The very first winter Olympics only permitted the participation of Scandinavian countries, such as Norway and Sweden. The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games allowed 84 different countries from six continents. A growth in the number of teams in the Olympics also increases the challenge to win as there are more athletes to compete against each other.

On top of a more varied pool of countries, the athletes of each country became more and more diverse. Since the first Olympics, all races could compete, but each country was responsible for deciding on athletes represent them. Countries with a history of racism hosted or entered the Olympics since it began. The racism in competing nations brought controversy to the games. There were even talks of boycotting the 1968 Olympics in Mexico from Martin Luther King Jr.

"We're not saying ‘burn it down,'" King Jr. said in The John Carlos Story. "We're just merely saying we don't care to participate and see how you feel without us as a part of the show."

Women also became a bigger part of the games. The first time that women were allowed to compete was the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris. Only 22 out of 997 athletes were females and they participated in five different sports including tennis and golf. In contrast, 44 percent of the athletes were women in the more recent 2012 Olympics in London.

“More and more women are chairing IOC commissions, such as the Coordination Commissions for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games and the 2nd Winter Youth Olympic Games in 2016 in Lillehammer, as well as the Women and Sport Commission and Athletes’ Commission,” International Olympic Committee reported in an October 2013 fact sheet.

The growth of the Olympics also appears in the increased money surrounding the games. In 1976, the Olympics cost about $1.6 billion. Host countries now more than ever view the Olympics as an opportunity to demonstrate their wealth and success. Almost four decades later, the 2014 games cost a whopping $51 billion.

“For President Putin [staging the Games] is a chance to show off Russia as a resurgent superpower,” Rick Broadbent and Ben Hoyle wrote in a Times of London article in 2014.

Contributed by: Sean Santiago, Velid Mulic

Celebrating the Rangers' 20th Anniversary of their 1994 Stanley Cup victory

"The Wait is Over" / sportspubbooks.com

For New Yorkers, the Rangers are a big part of their sports world with a following that spans multiple generations. With the Stanley Cup playoffs still in progress, they are glad to see that the New York Rangers have made it so far. The last time the Rangers won the Stanley Cup was in 1994, making this year the 20th anniversary of their title. That championship ended a 54 year championship drought.

John Kreiser’s book, "The Wait is Over," tells the tale of the Rangers team that battled all season long to ultimately win the championship in 1994. Prior to that year, the Rangers suffered a disappointing season in 1992-1993 by not making the playoffs. What made it even worse was the fact that their 1991-1992 season was successful. They placed first in the Patrick division holding 50 wins and 25 losses. It was devastating to go from a top tier team, to a team that could not even qualify to play for the Stanley Cup.

John Krieser opens with those contrasting seasons and then moves on to the rebuilding process after the 1992-1993 season. The Rangers had a lot question marks and wondered who would be their key pieces on the team. They knew that they had to qualify for the playoffs this season. These questions resulted in answers in the form of future Hall of Famers like Brian Leetch, Mike Richter, and Steve Larmer. Mike Keenan became the head coach and the team looked ready to make a playoff run.

With the team built, Kreiser shifted the focus to the regular season. With a good mix of storytelling and dialogue from the players, people can relive the entire 1993-1994 year starting from the Ranger's Mustard Cup run in London, to the dramatic weeks before the trade deadline, and the race for the President’s Trophy. Every highlight of every game is mentioned and it feels like reading the game recap on the actual National Hockey League (NHL) website; however, this may be a negative for casual fans or readers. People may be looking for the highlights of the season rather than every single game played by the Rangers.

The Stanley Cup playoffs is a better part of the book. John Kreiser gave breakdowns of the statistics of the teams that the Rangers faced. He answered questions like, “Why will this team make this series easy or hard?”, and “Which player or players should the Rangers look out for?”, while describing every game of each series in high detail similar to the regular season games. Since it was the playoffs for the championship, reading the recap of the games was not as tedious as reading the regular season games.

A positive aspect about Kreiser’s writing in this book is that he portrays the emotions of the players during and after each game. The dialogue by the former players that are incorporated into the book depicts the intensity of each game, the players' determination to win, and happiness that came with winning. It helps put life to the games and players.

"The Wait is Over" provides great insight on the minds, effort, and management of the Rangers team that won the Stanley Cup in 1993-1994. Kreiser delves deep into the regular season and some readers may probably only want the highlights of what happened during each month rather than every game. Dialogue from the players on the Rangers brings life to this work. The playoff run for the Stanley Cup is probably the best part of the book. Neil Smith believes that this work brings back old memories for fans and helps younger generations of fans envision themselves as being there to watch the game. "The Wait is Over" is a worthy pick up for anybody who is a fan of the Rangers or wants to read about a championship in New York.

Should performance enhancing drugs be legalized?

Performance Enhancing Drugs / Wordonfire.org

Performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) are very prevalent in sports, but only a small majority of players are caught using them. PEDs are considered to be unsportsmanlike in their use because of the unfair advantage that they offer. In addition, there are many risks in taking them, like psychological issues and permanent nerve damage. Knowing the risks, multiple players still use these drugs to gain an upper hand.

With so many players getting caught using PEDs, some have come to the conclusion that PEDs should be allowed in professional sports. In Major League Baseball alone, 31 athletes have been caught doping and in the National Football League over 20 athletes have also been caught doping. On a global scale, the Olympics and the Tour de France potentially face a great doping problem.

“Eighty percent of the Tour de France medalists between 1996 and 2010 have been similarly tainted by doping',” according to a 2013 USADA report on Lance Armstrong.

By legalizing PEDs and allowing all players to use them, the drugs could be monitored and regulated. This would allow players to take the drugs in safer and more knowledgeable conditions, leveling the playing field for all players. By doping, players could hit harder, run and react faster, putting the game on a higher level.

Extreme records could be achieved and this is shown through top athletes who have taken PEDs, like seven consecutive winner of the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong. Even though legalizing these drugs seem like it would make the game better, it wouldn't fix all of the issues that already exist. In addition, it would bring forth new problems.

If PEDs become regulated, they are still dangerous and can injure players. After seeing their heroes take drugs, it may influence children to take drugs as well. There are many side effects to taking drugs like heart and circulatory problems. Knowing these severe risks, it is hard to justify the legalization of these drugs

Allowing PEDs to be available to all athletes may not even level the playing field, since some players have a moral code against using drugs or are scared of the risks it presents. Sports are considered to be so sacred because they showcase the pinnacle of human skill. By taking drugs, it would no longer be about how far a human can push himself, but on well we can create them.

“We want humans to do superhuman things -- but only in a very human way. Yes, you can try to make steroids legal. That doesn't mean they will ever seem OK,” Michael Rosenberg wrote in a 2010 Sports Illustrated article.

Written by Justin Wu and Kofi Odame 

Technological development in sports

In sports there is always room for improvement. A lot of that improvement is from the skill of the athletes, but a major factor contributing to the advancement of sports is the advancement of technology. Although many technological developments have contributed to sports throughout the years, the two most significant were the progression of football helmets and the evolution of basketball shoes.

Throughout the history of football, there has undoubtedly been vast amounts of research and development regarding helmets. Since the 1930s when the first plastic helmet was developed, helmets have provided a physical shell to protect the player from taking the brunt of a hit. The question remains, how effective are helmets at protecting players from head injuries?

Helmets don’t soften the hit and they don’t make the wearer’s head stronger. The reason that helmets reduce the risk of injury is because they increase the amount of time that it takes for the force to transfer from one player to another. Since the impulse (or change in momentum) stays the same, the increase of time reduces the force that is transferred to the head.

In order to determine the effectiveness of modern helmets, one must understand that there are two major types of head injuries: skull fractures and concussions. As helmets have evolved, there is no doubt that they better protect against hard impacts that would cause something like a skull fracture. Brain damage, on the other hand, occurs because of rapid movements of the brain inside the head. Since helmets do not actually hold the brain in place, they are only minimally effective in protecting against brain damage.

A study was conducted by researchers from Cleveland Clinic's Spine Research Laboratory and Case Western Reserve University to compare the protection leather and plastic helmets have against concussions. The researchers tested different types of hits on the helmets and found that the modern helmets did not perform as they expected.

“To the researchers surprise, the old and new helmets performed equally in the tests,” Susan Perry said in a 2011 MinnPost article about the study. “In fact, for many of the impacts — particularly frontal hits — the leather helmets performed better.”

The researchers at CCSRL and CWRU also found that even the helmets that performed the best in the tests only reduced the risk of brain damage by 20-30%. In another study done, a researcher at Virginia Tech, Stefan Duma, found that some of the most popular helmets, including the Riddell VSR4 and the Adams A2000 Pro Elite, had marginal to no protection against concussions.

Most modern helmets do provide protection against all types of head injury, and wearing a helmet is definitely recommended when playing football. The technology is available to make helmets more effective. Combining the aspects of leather helmets that outperformed plastic helmets is just one improvement that could be made. While the development of helmets continues to make football safer, basketball shoes are the most important aspect of the safety of basketball players.

Basketball sneakers are highly coveted across the globe, sought after not only for their trendy designs, but the prevention from injury that they provide. In 1917, the first basketball shoe was made by Converse, the All-Star. The All-Star was made up of just a rubber sole and a canvas top. For the next four decades, they were the shoe of choice among basketball players everywhere.

Nike Air Jordan 1 / Kevin from Yardley, Pennsylvania

Then in the 1970s the shoes basketball players preferred started to change. This happened because shoes such as the Nike Blazer started using innovative leather materials. This made players choose the Blazers over the Converse shoes because the shoes made of leather provided more ankle support. Several years later Nike produced the Air Force one which had Nike Air technology.

Nike Air is the technology that brought a new era of shoes to basketball. Nike Air was compressed air that nike would put in the soles of their shoes. The system improved shock absorption and cushioning, and this helps take stress off muscles and tendons when running. This technology was first used in the Air Force ones in the early 1980s and then shortly after that the Air Jordan 1.

 The injury prevention that Nike Air provides is just one of the reasons why basketball sneakers are coveted around the world. The continuing development of shoes, like Nike Air, and football helmets such as the Riddell 360, are just some of the advancements in sports technology. These advancements make sports more competitive and safer for future players.