Horace Greeley

Just Getting Started: Quakers Field Hockey Team A Section 1 Win Plus Hopes for the Future

March 22, 2020 by Andrew Vitelli

On November 2, the Horace Greeley field hockey team clinched its first Section 1 championship since 1984 with a 1-0 win over Mamaroneck.

It was a late goal by senior captain Isabelle Klein that sealed the win at Nyack High School last Fall. But building a championship team–one that lost two straight sectional final games before breaking through–took years, both for the program and the girls who finally ended the drought.

The upwards trek towards the top of Class A began 11 years ago, when Sukhvindar Singh Sandhu–recently named New York State Coach of the Year–joined the coaching staff. Sandhu, who played pro field hockey in India, found a middling program that posed little threat to Section 1 Class A juggernaut Mamaroneck. Sandhu saw that many of the girls were relatively new to the game, and realized he needed to get a stick in their hands at a younger age.

Building a Hockey Program from the Ground Up

“I talked to a couple of the parents, and we started a youth program,” he recalls. This helped grow the number of players coming out for the team, but it was not enough. “The next step was getting the travel team” established, Sandhu says. “You need the kids playing year-round.”

Sandhu became head coach of the varsity team in 2009 after a year coaching JV.

His first four years at the varsity level produced just one winning record and no playoff wins. In 2013 the Quakers began showing signs of life, making it to the Section 1 quarterfinals. The next year, Greeley reached the semi-finals, followed by three trips to the sectional championship game in four years.

The Quakers fell one game short of a Section 1 title in 2015, 2017 and 2018, losing to Mamaroneck each time. In November, the girls found themselves as the only team standing in the way of a Tigers threepeat.

“Seeing the seniors lose in that final game [the previous two years], I did not want to feel that as a senior,” midfielder Sofia Rutman says. “We just knew that couldn’t be our last game with the underclassmen.”

Klein’s goal, along with a dominant Quaker defense which did not allow a goal throughout the Section 1 playoffs, were enough to finally lift Greeley past the Tigers. Greeley won two more games to make it to the state championship. There, the season ended with a 2-1 loss to Maine-Endwell. “Most of the girls on our team who are juniors now were playing in that youth group with me,” says junior forward Lily Schoonmaker, who started playing the sport in fifth grade and has verbally committed to play for Colgate. “We’ve been going through the New Castle program through modified and now to varsity.”

Team Camaraderie & Coaches: Key Success Factors

Rutnam also pointed to the team chemistry as an important factor in their success. “I’ve been playing with these girls for six or seven years now, and it makes a huge difference just to know them and know their playing styles,” she explains. “We got along off the field really well, and that translated to passing and connections on the field. It let us score a lot of goals.”

Schoonmaker, who led the team with 20 goals, and Rutman, who was named the Quakers’ MVP, both cited Sandhu and assistant coach Brittany Paulus as key to the team’s success. “If you have a foot in the wrong place as you’re approaching somebody with the ball, he knows exactly where you should be and how to fix it,” Rutman says of Sandhu. “He knows every aspect of the game.”

Following their 18-1-4 season, the Quakers will be favored to vie for the championship again next season. The team is graduating nine seniors, including Rutman, who was All State, All League midfielder Talia Belowich and forward Klein, and All League Honorable Mention forward Kristen Graham and midfielder Paige Dalrymple. Defender Mia Warshaw, forwards Tess Fuqua and Sophie Dorst, and midfielder Mia Handler will also graduate.

But three All State players will be returning –Schoonmaker along with defender Caroline Flannery and midfielder Natalie Laskowski. All Section defender Stephanie Kasulka will be back, as will Emma Terjesen, Grace Arrese, Hannah Lane and goaltender Siena Jarrin, who were all named All League or All League Honorable Mention.

With a Section 1 title crossed off the checklist, the next goal is to win one more game and take home the state championship. “We are going to come back strong,” says Schoonmaker. “Now that we’ve been there, we have to do it.”

Donate Your Graduation Gowns

June 13, 2019 by The Inside Press

Goodwill Industries of Greater New York and New Jersey has teamed up with Horace Greeley High School Junior Daniel Greenstein to recover graduation gowns. Goodwill has agreed to accept the donated gowns as a part of its sustainability efforts.

After the big day, graduating seniors, and even alumni, can drop off their gowns and caps at the high school. Graduates can look for the bins outside the gym at the graduation, and for the week after graduation. The gowns will be donated to Goodwill Industries of Greater New York & Northern New Jersey.

Daniel Greenstein said “hundreds of graduation gowns worn by students sit in closets for years before they end up in the trash. We need to keep graduation gowns out of landfills. This effort will maximize the sustainability of graduation gowns”

About Goodwill Industries of Greater New York and Northern New Jersey

Goodwill NYNJ is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. They exist to uplift the local communities of New York and Northern New Jersey by using funds generated in their retail stores and donation centers to support employment opportunities for people with disabilities or other obstacles to employment.

For more information contact Daniel Greenstein –dgreenstein221@gmail.com

New NCHS Exhibit Explores Lincoln’s Relationship with Greeley

September 21, 2016 by Inside Press

New Castle Historical Society (NCHS) to open major exhibition and to host lecture by Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer

On September 23, 2016, the New Castle Historical Society will open a new exhibition, Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley: Uncertain Allies. Illustrated with contemporary photographs, prints, cartoons, and documents, the exhibition traces the complex and sometimes tempestuous relationship between these important leaders during the era of the Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley had much in common. Both arose from poverty to achieve success through a combination of natural talent and personal effort: Greeley as a journalist who became the editor of the country’s most influential newspaper, Lincoln as a lawyer and politician who became President of the United States. Both shared many of the same aims and ideals, particularly their determination to preserve the Union, and to bring about the eventual end of slavery. But their very different personalities and temperaments often put them at odds. They became allies, but uncertain ones, who at once respected and exasperated each other.

Lincoln is justly celebrated for his leadership through the ordeal of the Civil War. But Greeley also made a significant contribution, through his support of Lincoln at certain crucial moments, and more importantly by his influence on Northern public opinion, which gradually shifted goals from simply defeating the Southern rebellion to achieving a “new birth of freedom” in a nation free of slavery.

The exhibition opening will take place at the Horace Greeley House (100 King St., Chappaqua, NY 10514) on Friday, September 23, from 6:00 to 9:00 P.M. Admission is free and open to all ages. Adults may enjoy complimentary wine and cheese to celebrate the opening.

In connection with the exhibition, the historical society and the Chappaqua Library will jointly host a lecture by renowned Lincoln historian Harold Holzer, recipient of the 2008 National Humanities Award and many other honors, and author of more than fifty books on Lincoln and the Civil War era. His talk is entitled “Old Abe and The Old Philosopher: The Long, Unhappy Alliance between Horace Greeley and Abraham Lincoln.”

As Mr. Holzer describes it: “From the time they first met—and failed to click—at a big 1848 River & Harbor Convention in Chicago, and as fellow Whig Congressman in Washington shortly thereafter, rising editor Horace Greeley and rising politician Abraham Lincoln “enjoyed” a rocky professional relationship that failed repeatedly to unite them as true friends but in time succeeded in changing the course of American history. During the ugliest of all their fights: the campaign for president in 1864, what should have been the closest of alliances ended in tatters. But by the time Lincoln died, the Union had been preserved and slavery killed. And each man could claim a share of credit.”

Mr. Holzer’s lecture will take place in the theater of the Chappaqua Library on Sunday afternoon, September 25, at 4:00 P.M. Refreshments will be served, and copies of Mr. Holzer’s books will be available for sale and signing, including his latest, Lincoln and the Power of the Press. The historical society exhibition will be open both before and after the lecture.

For more information, please call 914-238-4666 or email Cassie Ward at director@newcastlehs.org.

A Release from the New Castle Historical Society

Spring into History at the Greeley House

March 10, 2016 by Inside Press

Special Guest Presentation! “Westchester County: A Historical Tour in Postcards”– Thursday, March 24th, 7:30 pm

Please join the New Castle Historical Society in the Horace Greeley House parlor for an evening of local history presented through historic postcards. The program, presented by Patrick Raftery of the Westchester County Historical Society, discusses the history of Westchester County from the late-17th century to the present using historic postcards. Among the topics covered are historic houses and churches, the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, the Croton and Kensico dams, monuments, transportation, education and recreation.

Many of us have only seen photos of the past in black and white, and thus we imagine our ancestors’ past in hues of gray. Obviously we know better, but it’s hard to visualize the vibrant colors of the past since many of us have never seen it. Luckily for us, photographers and postcard producers would colorize their photos and cards, so that those vivid hues and tints were widely available to those who could not experience it first-hand. We can enjoy these photos and postcards and imagine what our ancestors might have experienced: what scents they sniffed, what colors they saw, and what textures they might have touched! Looking at these items we can take a glimpse into the past.

Registration is recommended, but all are welcome to attend. Please register by calling Cassie Ward at 914-238-4666 or by emailing director@newcastlehs.org.
Recommended Donation: $10

Includes: Program, self-guided tours, and wine & cheese.
Location: Horace Greeley House, 100 King St., Chappaqua, NY
Other upcoming events: www.newcastlehs.org/events