Saint Anthony’s Alumni Return For Annual Game

Past and present Harrison basketball players came home last Friday for an alumni basketball game at West Harrison's St. Anthony's School.

The participants were players from past decades and players were divided up into two teams, Blue and White.

The White team was made up of New England College's Eric Eklund and Harrison High School's varsity forward Will Oggeri. Other players included former St. Anthony's players Tim Claroni and Joey Pasqualini.

The key players on the Blue team included Harrison High School's Dennis Rinaldi, as well as former St. Anthony's players Bobby Russo and yours truly. The Blue team's head coach was Harrison's Daniel Rinaldi who has been a stalwart in the St. Anthony's program since the mid 1990s.

The game pitted most valuable players, all stars and other award winners against one another for two twenty-minute periods.

Substitutions were made every five minutes in an order to get all equal playing time and keep the athletes fresh. Late in the game Coach Rinaldi used strategy and saved his best five players for the last five minutes.

The game was close throughout the contest, but before the final five minutes the Blue team found themselves down by a small deficit. Thanks to Coach Rinaldi's strategy the Blue team took a six point lead late in the second half.

The White team called a timeout in order to make some substitutions. The move, along with some mental mistakes by the Blue team, gave the White team an advantage when with under a minute left they took the lead 69-68.

The Blue team took the ball in with 33 seconds remaining and after a broken play Dennis Rinaldi was able to muscle a loose ball away from the opposition. Rinaldi took the game into his own hands and made a one handed shot on the baseline giving Blue the 70-69 lead.

However, the lead would be short lived as Tim Claroni of the White team took a shot from the top of the key and as time expired the ball kissed off the glass and rolled gently in the net for the game-winning basket.

After the game the teams shook hands and setup the school gymnasium with large tables so that everyone could break bread with one another and reminisce about the glory days.

"I was glad to see such a great turn out," said St. Anthony's Head Coach Barry Barefoot. "The game was great too, it was a hard-fought competitive battle that went down to the final buzzer. I couldn't be happier with the outcome."

The great thing about this game was that it gave some of the grizzled veterans of the program an opportunity to play with their former teammates.

"It was good to see a lot of the old faces," said Bobby Russo. "Some of us are a little older now but you can tell everyone still has the will to compete and the desire to win, but most of all we all had a great time playing with one another."

The Saint Anthony's team won the CYO championship this year and everyone made a point at some time to acknowledge the lone banner now hanging in the gymnasium.

"It was something we could never do when we were on the team," said former player Joey Pasqualini. "I am glad they won this year, it meant a lot to the community."