Written by Scott D’Ottavio, Athletic Director

10/16/2020

I hope this letter finds you and your family well and remaining healthy. I hope you continue to keep in touch with our community. We miss having you around and want you to know that you’ve done so much to help our program succeed over the years.

As we head into our second year as The Leffell School, let me be the one to tell you that it has been exciting. We’ve created a new logo (see photo #2 to the right) which resembles the older version, but in my honest opinion, looks a lot better. We’ve outfitted our teams in new gear that is top quality and among the nicest around (photos #3 and #4). And more importantly, we have continued to excel on the playing fields.

All of our teams are competing at high levels and adding excitement to our community. Our boys varsity soccer team continues to dominate in the post-season, winning five sectional titles in seven years (2012, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018). Our girls varsity soccer team has dominated the league, winning 10 league titles in 13 years (2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019).

Fall 2019 started off as a normal year with teams excelling. Our girls varsity soccer team won its 10th league title since 2007 and almost upset Haldane in the sectional championship. Our boys varsity soccer team pulled off an upset of its own, defeating a very talented Tuckahoe team. The Lions eventually lost to the #1 ranked team in the state in the finals, Alexander Hamilton. Both our boys and girls varsity basketball teams competed at the Westchester County Center.

Then everything changed. COVID-19 sent us all home in early March, leaving us with immense uncertainty. Our spring season was ultimately taken from us and our seniors (members of the Class of 2020) took the brunt of it. They were robbed of a final opportunity to represent the green and white colors of Leffell.

In addition to the name change, we had our first annual sports banquet in 2019, which was held in the Reis Family Media Center at the Upper School. It was a beautiful evening hosted by the Athletics Department and organized by Chief Advancement Officer Barbara Shapiro and her team. Many awards were given throughout the night with athletes of the year going to Ethan Sidelsky (Class of 2019) and Reese Cohen (Class of 2020).

Our 2020 sports banquet was our first-ever virtual sports awards ceremony and honored our fall and winter athletes. The athletes of the year awards went to Elan Roth (Class of 2020) and Haley Wilenzick (Class of 2021).

We revamped what used to be a dingy weight room into a well-equipped workout center. This space was designed, developed, and brought to fruition by Gilad Amir (Class of 2019) and Coach Bryan Lamana. The newly upgraded fitness center has allowed us to offer a P.E. workout class, in addition to a space for our athletes to continue to develop their fitness gains (photos #5 and #6).

We miss having you around and we hope once this pandemic is over, you’ll come back and walk our sidelines rooting for our teams. Stay safe, be well, and we hope to see you soon!

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