Leading off today: Bravo to North Rockland cross country coach Brian Diglio for being a man with a plan for his team and best-known scholastic distance runner in the country.
In plotting out a schedule for the 2018 season, Diglio added new meets and discarded some races that had been fixtures for North Rockland. Consequently, Katelyn Tuohy will have some fresh challenges in her junior season while still being able to measure herself against last year's times on other courses.
In short, she won't toe the line each week facing expectations that she must break all the outlandish course records she established in 2017.
"I knew that with the season she had last year that there would be a lot of attention and pressure on her," Diglio told Milesplit. "I think one of my jobs as a coach, in addition to keeping her healthy and fit, was to deflect as much pressure off of her as possible. And that's not very easy to do. Anytime she'll run this season, anywhere, there will be eyeballs."
Gone are the Grout and Manhattan Invitationals, where Tuohy crushed course records last year. In their place, North Rockland will race at the Ocean State Invitational on Sept. 22 in Rhode Island and the New Balance Shore Coaches Invitational on Oct. 6 in New Jersey. And with the NYSPHSAA meet slated for the same course in November, Diglio will take his team to Sunken Meadows on Long Island in mid-October.
Back at work: Rob Perpall is back thought the 2017 football season at Seaford would be his last, but he's back on the sideline for season No. 21 this fall.
Perpall, who led Seaford to its third Long Island Class IV championship, had announced his retirement after his team's 29-27 LIC victory over Miller Place.
"A few people, including the school superintendent, and a majority of the returning senior players asked me to come back," he said. "And I'm thrilled to be back."
College commitment: To the surprise of no one, Greg Diakomihalis has committed to continuing his college wrestling career at Cornell, where his brother Yanni was an NCAA Division I champion as a true freshman last season.
Greg Diakomihalis won his third straight NYSPHSAA championship last season as a Hilton sophomore. He posted a 43-0 record last season.
Quick career starts: The Press & Sun-Bulletin last week tackled the subject of seventh- and eighth-graders competing as varsity athletes.
Coaches, administrators, medical personnel and parents are involved in the Athletic Placement Process, which evaluates a junior-high student's ability to compete at the JV or varsity levels.
But that's only half the equation. Everyone involved -- including the athlete -- also has to consider the dynamics that go along with having someone as young as 12 years ago competing alongside and against athletes as old as 18 or even 19.
"It's work, it's not an easy for any athlete to be pushed up to another level and another age-group, but at the same time, it's an achievement," Whitney Point field hockey coach Nicky Huston said. "I'm like a hawk with the little ones. I watch them constantly. I'm that mother hen, too. I want to protect them because I just brought them up in a situation and they're going to be playing with older kids, and being around everything else that happens when you're older."
