SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Central Catholic School announced last week that it will merge with Stillwater to create a new football program. 17 Spa Catholic students will participate in the inaugural season beginning this fall at the modified and junior varsity levels. Varsity will start in the 2025-2026 school year. 

Stillwater’s team is the defending Class D Sectional Champions.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The 2024 Ethos Awards, which recognize individuals who advance the engagement of black and brown people in the world of equestrian sports, will be presented at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs on August 31.

This year’s recipients include:

• Mayisha Akbar, founder of the Compton Jr Posse (CJP) in 1988, which offers youth hope, connection, and success by teaming them with horses

• Dr. George & Ann Blair, who started the New York Riding Academy in 1970 in Manhattan’s Randall Island Park, making horseback riding more inclusive for everyone

• Anastasia Curwood, co-founder of Strides for Equality, an organization working in numerous ways to create equitable opportunities for BIPOC equestrians

• Caitlin Gooch, founder of Saddle Up and Read, a program that connects horses, kids, and libraries to increase literacy rates in North Carolina

• Lezlie Hiner, founder of Work to Ride, a community-based prevention program in Philadelphia that engages and empowers under-resourced urban youth through interactions with horses

• Patricia Kelly, President and CEO of Ebony Horsewomen, Inc., created in 1984 as a way to introduce the joys of riding to women in the Hartford, Connecticut area

The Ethos Award is a bi-annual event that partners with unique equine venues across the country who share the organization’s mission to change the narrative of equestrian sports.

For more information about this year’s gala, visit ethosawardequestrian.com/gala.

SAN FRANCISCO — Greg Farone, a Schenectady native, was selected by the San Francisco Giants in the seventh round of the 2024 MLB Draft on Monday. Farone is a left-handed pitcher who played for the University of Alabama in 2024.

With the Crimson Tide, Farone pitched 71.2 innings, earning a 5.02 ERA, which was the lowest among all of the team’s starting pitchers. In April, he pitched a complete game shutout against Ole Miss.

Farone previously played for the University of Louisville and Herkimer College in New York before transferring to Alabama. He attended Schenectady High School.

Thousands of runners participated in the 18th annual Firecracker4 race on Independence Day morning in downtown Saratoga Springs. Photos by Super Source Media.

Michael Scialdone Sharkey broadcasts from the United States Bocce Federation National Championships at the Highwood Bocce Club in Highwood, Illinois in June 2023. Photo provided.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — From ancient Rome to Saratoga Springs, the sport of bocce has a long and storied history that is still being celebrated by local players such as Michael Scialdone Sharkey, whose passion for the sport has resulted in tens of millions of hits on social media platforms.

Sharkey’s family hailed from Vitulazio, Italy, a small town about 22 miles north of Naples, where they would play bocce in their vineyard every Sunday. When they came to America, the family started hosting tournaments in central New York and the Finger Lakes. Growing up in Saratoga Springs, Sharkey even had a bocce court in his backyard. Today, he is both a gold-medal-winning national tournament player, and the owner of the Bocce Broadcast Network (BBN), which livestreams games on YouTube.

“I just spent all my money on all this camera equipment and switchers and all this stuff that I had no idea how it worked at first,” Sharkey said. He lugged his gear to the Italian Community Center in Troy and recorded some league games that he then uploaded to YouTube. To Sharkey’s surprise, the videos quickly generated hundreds of views.

Encouraged, Sharkey began broadcasting tournaments from around the country, including the Las Vegas Bocce National Open Championship in Nevada, and the United States Bocce Federation National Championship in St. Louis, Missouri. 

“There’s this whole kind of underground tournament circuit that the sport operates on, and until recently, nobody really was aware of it, outside of the players and their families,” Sharkey said. 

The BBN made those tournaments accessible to a wider audience, allowing new generations of fans to become engrossed in the ancient sport. 

“I see the excitement in people when they see the sport for the first time,” Sharkey said. “A lot of people played growing up in the backyard or wherever, but when you see the next level, the professional level of this sport, people get excited about it.”

While the network broadcasts bocce to the world, Sharkey is also working to increase the sport’s popularity here at home. In January, Saratoga Springs approved plans to build a $13,000 bocce court in Veteran’s Memorial Park. Sharkey’s father, who has built many of his own courts, reached out to the city to offer his assistance.

“Saratoga has the money to do nice things, so we’re hoping they’ll build some nice courts out there and maybe in the future we can have some leagues there,” Sharkey said. “We can introduce people to the sport, but then also introduce them to this competitive style if they want to take it further.”

Last year, local high schools piloted a unified bocce program run by Special Olympics New York. The league provided an opportunity for students with limitations in adaptive areas to play bocce. The pilot program was a success, and in October 2023, the BBN broadcast the unified championship tournament live from the Italian American Community Center in Albany.

As the sport grows in popularity both nationally and locally, Sharkey noted that bocce has survived for generations thanks to the hard work of countless volunteers. “There’s just this real generational passion for the sport that I think is really unique,” Sharkey said. 

The BBN’s next broadcast will be the World Series of Bocce at the Toccolana Club in Rome, New York on July 18-21. The network is also scheduled to cover the ABC Open at the Palazzo di Bocce in Lake Orion, Michigan in September.

Photo of Sam Skott via Skidmore Athletics.

SARATOGA SPRINGS —Skidmore College alum Sam Skott has been added to the field hockey team as an assistant coach to Beth Hallenbeck. 

Skott graduated from Skidmore College in 2015 with a degree in biology and later earned a Master of Arts in Teaching of biology at Clarkson University. She is currently a biology teacher at Emma Willard School in Troy, where she also coaches field hockey and softball.

During Skott’s playing career at Skidmore, The Thoroughbreds won three Liberty League titles and qualified for four NCAA Tournaments. The two-time All-Liberty League honoree was the Liberty League Tournament Most Outstanding Player in 2013 after scoring the game-winning goals in the semifinal and championship games. In that 2013 season, Skidmore advanced to the NCAA Semifinal game for only the third time in program history. Skott finished her career with 54 goals and 122 points in 85 career games.

Ari Berliner, Melissa Myers, and Nicole Stout from the Jason Morris Judo Center in Scotia all won their respective weight classes at the 2024 USA Judo Senior National Championships in Ontario, California last month. Berliner and Stout collected their fourth national titles, while Myers won her third. Image provided by Jason Morris.