| Owls football has local flavor
Three Berkshire County athletes were members of the Westfield State football team this fall. They are junior Shane Parrott of Pittsfield (Taconic), junior Joe Salvatore of Dalton (Wahconah) and freshman Nick Panetti of Pittsfield (Pittsfield). Parrott is a 6-foot-3, 305 pound lineman. "Shane was our starting offensive tackle who showed great improvement over the last two years," coach Steve Marino said. "He will be a three-year starter next year and anchor a very experienced offensive line." Salvatore, a 6-foot, 270-pounder, is also a member of that offensive line. "Joe won the starting guard job this year because of his toughness and enthusiasm," Marino said. "He also played in the backfield in our goal line package." Panetti, a 6-foot, 256-pound lineman, saw action as a backup.
Eagles in wild-card logjam in NFC
PHILADELPHIA -- If the Eagles could have pulled off the greatest upset in NFL history Sunday night they would have been sitting by themselves in the NFC's second wild-card spot, just one game behind the Giants for the top wild-card spot. Instead, as quarterback A.J. Feeley's end-zone pass intended for Kevin Curtis was picked off by New England's Asante Samuel, the Eagles remained a game out of the wild-card picture and log-jammed with five other five-win teams. With five games left in the regular season, the NFC division titles are becoming clearer, Dallas has a three-game lead in the East; Green Bay has a four-game lead in the North; Tampa Bay has a two-game lead in the South; and Seattle has a two-game lead in the West. As far as the race for the two wild-card spots go, it's anybody guess.
The losing begins for local teen
Flanked by her parents, Alexis Khan arrived Oct. 17 at Medical University Hospital for gastric bypass surgery. "I woke up with nerves," she said from her hospital bed before the four-hour procedure. Her father, James Debrum, pinched her polished toes through the crisp sheet. .
Warriors want to drink from big cup
The St. Charles West Warriors hockey team is the first from St. Charles County to advance to the finals in one of the three Mid-States Club Hockey Association playoff tiers four times.After three trips to the Wickenheiser Cup finals in this decade, the Warriors were 0-3 in trips to the finals. But last season, they beat Clayton in a shootout to capture the Founders Cup, the county's first Mid-States postseason hardware.But this year's team has higher aspirations. Like challenging for the Suburban North Conference title and earning the right to compete in the highest playoff tier: the Challenge Cup. First-year head coach Brad Schneider and his two assistants, Bill Heisse and Harris Schiff, want to help the Warriors get to Scottrade Center."It's a nice honor, it's always nice to win that last game, but these seniors had played for the Wickenheiser Cup for two years so they were used to being at the (Scottrade Center) competing for something bigger," Schneider said."As far as the coaching staff goes, that (Challenge) is our goal.
Fans are losers in NFL Network impasse
The NFL knew it had something special when its scheduling formula spit out a Packers-Cowboys matchup this season. While the league could never have anticipated they would rank as the top teams in the NFC, it did know the value of tradition and could document each team's enormous drawing power on national television. So when the schedule maker divvied up 2007 games among the league's television partners, it decided the Packers-Cowboys would not go to Fox, the network of the NFC, or the prime-time packages on NBC or ESPN, a trio which anted up $2.41 billion in rights fees this season. Instead, the NFL delivered the game to its own fledgling NFL Network, which will deliver the game to only one-third of the country. It's part of the league's plan to help transform an ugly duckling into a cash cow.
Hardly the retiring type: Salem's Gosselin still can be found where the action is
SALEM, N.H. - The wide array of school photos which have taken over the table in Bill and Irene Gosselin's Salem home tell the story of this busy, but happy retirement.
It's been better than a half a century since Gosselin played his last down of football for Arizona State. It has been nearly as long since he last held a clipboard in a high school football coaching career that saw him crisscross the Merrimack Valley with three different teams (Lawrence, Woodbury in Salem, N.H., and Methuen), and it has also been 14 years since Gosselin last spent the bulk of his waking hours in the Methuen's AD's office.
But the fall is still all about sidelines and whistles for the Gosselins. Whether it be a middle school field hockey game in Windham one day or a freshman football game at Central Catholic the next, when you had seven athletic children who correspondingly add another 22 grandchildren into the mix, it goes with the territory.
Vitale, McNeely lead Huskies' resurgence
Northeastern is nearly two months ahead of last season's pace in the wins column. The No. 16 Huskies have won six games, a feat they didn't accomplish last season until Jan. 26.
The Huskies (6-4-1, 6-3-1 Hockey East) beat No. 19 Boston College (3-4-5, 2-3-4 Hockey East) in overtime Friday night, padding their conference lead to three points. Senior Jimmy Russo scored his first goal of the season with four seconds remaining in the extra period. It was the second overtime goal of his career.
So far in the season, however, Russo's younger teammates are outplaying him. Standout junior forward Joe Vitale has a team-leading 13 points on the season (five goals, eight assists), all of which came in Hockey East play.
Along with Vitale, freshman forward Tyler McNeely has a share of the team lead with five goals.
BCS could expand at-large pool
The Bowl Championship Series will expand the pool of teams eligible for at-large bids if it's faced with a shortage of qualified contenders when the season is over. BCS rules state a team must have at least nine victories and finish in the top 14 of the final standings to qualify for an at-large bid to one of the five marquee bowl games. But because no conference can have more than two teams, including its champion, in the BCS, officials were facing the possibility of not having enough eligible teams to fill the 10 spots this season. The BCS announced Tuesday that if fewer than 10 of the top 14 teams in the standings are eligible for an at-large bid, the qualifying standard will extend to the top 18. If enough teams are still not available, the standard would be pushed back four spots until the pool is big enough to fill all the bowls.
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