Photo of new Skidmore College Pitching Coach Matt Karpousis via Skidmore Athletics.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Matt Karpousis, a 2023 Skidmore College grad, has returned to his alma mater to become the Thoroughbreds’ new baseball pitching coach. Karpousis was previously a pitching coach at Camden County College for the 2024 season.
As a player from 2020 to 2023, Karpousis registered 16 innings pitched, with 6 strikeouts and a 7.31 ERA. He was part of playoff qualifying teams in both 2022 and 2023.
“I really enjoyed my time here at Skidmore as a player and can’t wait to begin my first season now as a coach,” Karpousis said in a statement.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) held its Winter Executive Committee meeting at the Embassy Suites in Saratoga Springs last week. The committee voted on numerous topics including regional rotations, rules, and championship host sites.
The Executive Committee approved an earlier start to the Fall 2025 season. The new start date will be August 18 for all sports.
NYSPHSAA has received support from the New York State Education Department for football to have a 16-week season starting with the Fall 2025 season.
Language in the NYSPHSAA Handbook was changed to allow foreign exchange students the opportunity to compete as student-athletes at the sub-varsity level
Visions Veterans Memorial Arena (Section IV) was approved for Competitive Cheerleading for the 2026-2028 championships; MVP Arena (Section 2) was approved for the Girls and Boys Wrestling Championships for 2026-2028; and Cicero-North Syracuse High School (Section III) and Icahn Stadium (Manhattan) were approved for the Outdoor Track and Field Championships for the 2027 and 2028 season, respectively.
For Flag Football, numerous new rules were voted on and unanimously approved for implementation, including a 14” length minimum of flags.
Jockey Johnny Velazquez poses with his wife Leona. Photo via the New York Racing Association (NYRA).
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Hall of Fame jockey Johnny Velazquez and his wife Leona will be this year’s recipients of the newly renamed John Hendrickson and Marylou Whitney Award due to the couple’s support of the New York backstretch community. The award will be presented at the 18th Annual Fundraising Brunch on Aug. 13 at the Saratoga National Golf Course.
In 2013, Velazquez became the all-time leading rider at the Saratoga Race Course with his 694th career win. In August 2022, he became the first jockey to win 1,000 races at Saratoga.
The annual award was originally known as the Marylou Whitney Award but it was renamed by the New York Race Track Chaplaincy after the sudden passing of her husband John Hendrickson last year.
“Like his late wife, John had a special place in his heart for the backstretch community and we thought renaming the award in this way was a fitting tribute to his legacy of humanitarian spirit,” said Ramón Dominguez, president of the Board of the NY Chaplaincy, in a news release.
Velazquez, who serves on the New York Race Track Chaplaincy board of directors, has won two Eclipse Awards as the nation’s outstanding jockey (2004, 2005), as well as six Triple Crown races and 21 Breeders’ Cup races. He has been an active member of The Jockeys’ Guild for many years and currently serves as the co-chairman of the organization. Leona has served on the Belmont Child Care Association board and her family has been active in a variety of backstretch organizations for several decades.
The American Basketball Association’s rankings for the week ending Feb. 2. Image via the ABA.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Racers of the American Basketball Association (ABA) were elevated to a #19 ranking for the week ending Feb. 2. They had previously been ranked #23. The ABA’s ranking system spotlights the top 25 teams out of about 150 teams nationwide.
The Racers are currently 12-6 on the season, with at least four of their losses coming at the hands of higher ranked teams. Three of the losses were to undefeated teams ranked #2 and #5.
Saratoga’s next home game at the Saratoga Central Catholic gym is scheduled for Feb. 16 at 3 p.m. After that contest, the Racers will only have two more games remaining before the playoffs begin.
Stillwater runner Anthony Zazzaro crosses the finish line first at Mother’s Day Event 2023. Photo provided by Silvio Laccetti.
STILLWATER — Anthony Zazzaro, a four-year track and cross-country star at Stillwater High School, is used to bucking fierce headwinds.
Stillwater is a very small school (graduating class of around 70) with a strong athletic tradition. The cross-country team had only two members this past year. For Anthony, that means running and training alone, close mentoring by his varsity coach Shawn McClements, and plenty of support from his townsfolk for whom he has become a familiar sight running in all kinds of weather, all year long.
“Anthony and I have a very holistic coach-athlete relationship,” said Coach McClements. “For us, it’s always been about advancing the whole person, because cross-country is very mentally and spiritually demanding. Moments racing alone in the backwoods test a runner as he confronts obstacles.”
Zazzaro was the first and only Stillwater cross-country runner ever to advance through the states competition to the Federation Championships, which he did in 2022, 2023, and 2024. After the 2024 season, he won the Class C State Silver Medal.
Zazzaro’s most cherished and poignant moment in racing was competing in the Kelly’s Angels Mother’s Day Race in 2023 at the age of 15. Kelly’s Angels was founded by Mark Mulholland, an area media personality, to honor and memorialize his wife Kelly, who passed from cancer in 2007. Kelly’s Angels was well known to Anthony who had been a beneficiary and contributor to their outreaches, since his mother was suffering from cancer herself.
The race in 2023 was supremely special to Anthony. He ran to honor his mom who had been the major force and fan motivating her son to succeed, taking him to practices and events as a child, and gently prodding him to get up and running on those cold weekend mornings when other teens would nestle in bed for a few more hours. In this May of 2023, Diane Zazzaro was at the end of her heroic two-year battle with cancer.
Anthony set out to win the race for his mom, and so he did. As he recounted, during that effort his heart was breaking, but pumping harder than ever. “Every breath, every step I took, I wanted it for her,” Zazzaro said.
In a wheelchair, Zazzaro’s mom witnessed her son’s Mother’s Day tribute to her. It was to be one of her final experiences. Three days later, she passed away.
Devastated but unbroken by his loss, Zazzaro dedicated his racing career to Diane.
In this difficult situation, running against the wind, Anthony is blessed and encouraged by the memory of all the “Kellys” who left their families much too early. Sunrise or sunset, the cold of dusk and the heat of mid-day are part of the continuing cycle of training, competing and achieving. Just recently, he handily won the Springfield, Massachusetts Invitational to begin his indoor track season.
But Anthony doesn’t run alone. He has many angels on his shoulders to propel him ever onward.
Silvio Laccetti, Ph.D is a retired history professor, national columnist, and director of The Silvio Laccetti Foundation.
The Saratoga Central Catholic boys varsity basketball team beat Stillwater 55 to 45 last weekend. Image via Saratoga Central Catholic Athletics.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Central Catholic boys basketball team has extended their winning streak to 15 straight games after beating Greenwich and Stillwater on Feb. 1 and Feb. 4, respectively. Their record now stands at 17-1 overall, and an undefeated 11-0 in the Wasaren League.
The game against Greenwich was closely contested until the Saints outscored their foes 16 to 5 in the fourth quarter to seal the deal, 60 to 48. Tyler Hicks netted 23 points (including 4 three-pointers) for Spa Catholic while Ronan Rowe hit 5 triples for 15 points.
The Saints beat Stillwater 55 to 45 last Saturday. Leading the charge once again was Hicks with 22 points.
The boys will next face Hoosick Falls at home on Friday, Feb. 7 at 7:30 p.m.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Adult Saratoga Softball League is looking for new teams for its upcoming spring/summer season, which begins the week of April 21.
Slow pitch co-ed games are on either Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, or Sundays. Men’s slow pitch games are on Mondays.
The entry fee of $825 per team includes access to fields, softballs, scorebooks, and lineup cards. Umpire fees are an additional $30 per team per game.
For more information or to sign up, contact saratogasoftballleague@gmail.com.
Florida Gulf Coast University women’s basketball player Dolly Cairns poses with Rich Johns, a former Saratoga Springs tennis coach and founder of “Act With Respect Always.” Photo provided by Johns.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Dolly Cairns, a Saratoga native and the all-time girls basketball scoring leader at Saratoga Springs High School, is in the midst of an exceptional, sharpshooting season at Florida Gulf Coast University. Cairns currently ranks 16th in three-point percentage (44.55%) among all NCAA Division 1 women’s basketball players.
Cairns is a starting shooting guard averaging 9.2 points, 3 assists, and 2 rebounds per game in the 2024-25 season thus far, helping to lift Florida Gulf Coast to a 19-3 overall record. As of press time, the Eagles had won 12 straight games.
Last season, Cairns and company fell in the first round of the NCAA women’s “March Madness” tournament in a nailbiter against the No. 5 seed Oklahoma Sooners. After the loss, Cairns told Saratoga TODAY that she plans to pursue a career in healthcare following the conclusion of the 24-25 season.
In high school, Cairns played for the Blue Streaks, scoring more than 2,000 points to set the school’s all-time scoring record. In 2019, she committed to the University of Rhode Island, where she played for two seasons before transferring to Florida Gulf Coast.
The 2024 Stanley Cup-winning Florida Panthers visited with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Monday. Photo via Margo Martin, Special Assistant and Communications Advisor to President Trump.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Vincent Viola, a regular at the Saratoga Race Course, visited with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday to celebrate the Florida Panthers’ 2024 Stanley Cup victory (Viola owns the team).
“We brought a cohort, to use a term we use in the military, of champions to visit a champion,” Viola said to Trump amid a roomful of spectators. “Your kindness and the hospitality displayed by your staff is a simple reflection of the excellence that you demand of your people and we were the beneficiaries of it today.”
Viola brought the Stanley Cup to the Saratoga Race Course last summer, allowing visitors to pose alongside the hockey trophy. He also reportedly owns (or owned) several multi-million-dollar homes in Saratoga Springs.
Viola is a horse racing enthusiast and the owner of St. Elias Stable, which produced the 2017 Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming. In 2016, the billionaire businessman was briefly President Trump’s pick for the United States Secretary of the Army, before he withdrew from consideration.
Also in 2016, Viola was accused of punching a concessions worker at a Fasig-Tipton racehorse auction in Saratoga. According to the New York Times, charges were not brought because neither Viola nor the concessions worker wanted to press charges and officers had not witnessed the incident.
