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Vol. LXI, No. 26
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Wednesday, June 27, 2007
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Vol. LXI, No. 26
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Wednesday, June 27, 2007
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(Photo courtesy of Princeton's Office of Athletic Communications)
SPECIAL PROMOTION: Trina Salcido enjoys the action last spring as she served as an assistant coach for the Princeton University softball team. Last week, Salcido was named as the program's new head coach, replacing Maureen Barron, who recently relocated to Texas. |
Trina Salcido was a west coast person through and through when she headed to New Jersey in 2005 to join the Princeton University softball team's coaching staff.
As a college player in the mid-1990s, Salcido, a native of Sacramento, Calif., starred for the University of Oregon where she earned honorable mention All-Pac 10 honors and was named to the school's Female All-Decade team.
After college, Salcido returned home for a two-year stint at Sacramento City College as an assistant softball coach/strength and conditioning coach.
Mike Russo came into the spring as the unquestioned ace of the Hun School baseball team's pitching staff.
Mixing fastballs in the high 80s with improving breaking stuff, the 6'5 junior lived up to his advance billing as he posted a 6-1 record.
Russo's maturity on the mound was reflected by his ability to get better as he went deeper into games. "I usually get stronger because I feel more comfortable at the end of the game, said Russo, who was a key reserve this past winter for the Hun boys' basketball team and helped the squad win the Prep A and Mid-Atlantic Prep League (MAPL) titles. "I throw harder and things start working better."
Legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne once said that "football is a game played with arms, legs, and shoulders but mostly from the neck up." Former Princeton High School star defensive back Sascha Hopson is living proof of the verity of this claim.
"I don't know why I'm in the secondary — I'm slow," the easygoing Hopson said. "But I have a high football IQ, I just know what's going on out there."
When Alexz Henriques started his Princeton High football career as a freshmen in the fall of 2003, he didn't look at himself as a particularly special player.
"I was pretty good in the junior leagues but I wasn't anything great," recalled Henriques.
But PHS head coach Steve Everette saw something special in his young running back. "Coach believed in me from day one," said Henriques. "As a freshman he told me that if I would follow what he said, I could be one of the best players to ever play at Princeton High. I tried to listen to him; he helped me so, so, so much."
Weighing in at 205 pounds, Brad Pietras was a little undersized to be mixing it up in the trenches of prep school football battles.
But that didn't stop the offensive lineman/linebacker from becoming a star for the Hun School football team.
With the scrappy Pietras hardly ever coming off the field last fall, he played a major role in helping the Raiders go 7-2 on the way to a Mid-Atlantic Prep League (MAPL) title.