By KEVIN RYDER
Special to the Standard

NORTH KINGSTOWN – For the young North Kingstown football team, Friday night’s home contest against Rogers represented one of the team’s best chances of posting a victory in Division I play this season.
Both teams came into the game winless, but the Vikings were riding the momentum of playing a close game against La Salle the previous week. That momentum carried into the game at the Anthony C. Perry Athletic Complex, with Rogers holding on for a 22-18 come-from-behind victory over the Skippers.
“The great thing was, at the end of the game, the kids were emotional but together. That was huge,” said North head coach John Horsman. “I was watching some of the faces and some of the kids that tend to put their head down, and they didn’t have their head down. They were together and trying to pick each other up. That was the positive thing I am going to take from this. We’ll build on that and keep working.”

For more, read the 10/8 edition of the Standard

By BRANDEN MELLO
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NORTH KINGSTOWN — In the first half of the North Kingstown boys soccer team’s Division I crossover match with Cumberland, Skipper senior Martin Salazar routinely found himself behind the ball as the Skippers found themselves in damage-limitation mode against the likes of Jason Loureiro and John Andrade.
In the second half, Salazar still played defense, but he spent most of the half tormenting the Clippers with his nifty dribbling and magnificent vision. And, not surprisingly, the Skippers dominated the second half.
While North’s second-half renaissance was about more than just Salazar, it was hard to miss the senior’s contributions to his team’s cause.
Salazar created Andy Hess’s leveler two minutes into the second half and he was the architect of Troy Crawford’s two goals in North’s 3-1 comeback win over the Clippers Tuesday night.

For more, read the 10/8 edition of the Standard

By ERIC RUEB
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SOUTH KINGSTOWN – The North Kingstown volleyball team’s sweep of rival South Kingstown Tuesday night wasn’t about the comebacks in Games 1 or 3.
It wasn’t about the stellar play in Game 2 or coming up with a big play whenever it needed one.
Tuesday North took a huge first step toward a state championship run by playing risk-reward volleyball, the type of play it will need to beat Prout. It worked against SK in a 27-25, 25-19, 28-26 win that had NK coach Vicki Tefft ecstatic about where the Skippers are going.
“You have to make a choice. Do you want to be kind of just in the status we are right now and not be able to challenge for the state championship? You’ll be in the mix,” she said. “But if we don’t take it to the next level, we’re not going to get to the point where we have the confidence to beat anybody and that’s the goal. We’re working on massaging their brains and training their brains right now because they’ve got skills.”

For more, read the 10/8 edition of the Standard

By PAUL J. SPETRINI
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EAST GREENWICH—When Ponaganset running back Nicholas Keeling ripped off a 94-yard touchdown run with 44 seconds to play in the first quarter Friday night, East Greenwich football coach Bob Corr was upset but not surprised.
See, Corr expected Keeling would pop a big play or two. He’s been doing it to the Avs for years now. It was all but guaranteed.
What he wasn’t expecting and what the Avengers weren’t ready for was that Keeling wouldn’t be the only player in Chieftain green to do so.
Ponaganset senior quarterback Joshua Morgan, playing in his first game for injured Chieftain starter Jacob Kravitz, completed six of nine passes Friday night for 172 yards and two touchdowns and that, combined with a 207-yard, three touchdown effort by Keeling, proved to be too much for the Avengers to handle in a decisive 36-8 drubbing on Homecoming weekend.

For more, read the 10/8 edition of the Pendulum

By PAUL J. SPETRINI
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EAST GREENWICH—It’s not often that you can say a field hockey game is over before the second half begins.
Monday afternoon, the game between East Greenwich and Tiverton trumped that. The Avengers had effectively ended it before the match had even started.
EG forwards Sarah Bateson, Lindsey Buckheit and Rebecca Cooper each scored two goals … in the first half … and the Avenger defense gave up just one shot on goal all game long as the Avs improved to 6-4-1 in Division I with an impressive and dominant 9-0 win over the shorthanded and winless Tiverton Tigers.

For more, read the 10/8 edition of the Pendulum

By PAUL J. SPETRINI
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WOOD RIVER JCT.—The last time the Chariho and South Kingstown field hockey teams met, three weeks ago, the Chargers walked off the field disappointed after a 1-0 loss in which they were outshot, outhustled and outplayed by the Rebel offense.
Tuesday, the teams squared off for the second time this season and, judging by the results, not much has changed.

For more, read the 10/8 edition of the Chariho Times

By ERIC RUEB
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WOOD RIVER JUNCTION – In recent years, a girls tennis match between Exeter-West Greenwich and Chariho would carry the same importance as an episode of The Hills on society.
Not anymore.
As the season winds down and teams start battling for playoff positions, Monday afternoon’s match was about what you’d expect from teams battling for second place in Division III-South and the Chargers found a way to win three very tight matches and come out with a 4-3 win over the Knights.

For more, read the 10/8 edition of the Chariho Times or Standard Times

By PAUL J. SPETRINI
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WOOD RIVER JCT.—East Greenwich senior Jessica Lau sat on the floor of the Chariho High School gymnasium Tuesday evening with her head in her hands, clearly upset with how her team’s volleyball match against the Chargers turned out.
It wasn’t the loss itself that bothered her—heck, the Avs have had plenty of those this season—it’s that, as usual, her team played better than the score would lead you to believe, better, at times, than their opponents, and they still had nothing to show for it.
There’s only so much losing one team can take.
Despite a match-high 19 assists from junior MacKenzie Rickert and 13 solid kills from senior Jenna Denice, the Avs once again fell Tuesday, dropping a 25-23, 25-17, 26-24 decision to Chariho to fall to 1-10 on the season.

For more, read the 10/8 edition of the Chariho Times

By BRANDEN MELLO
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WOOD RIVER JCT. — On a weekend where Division II title favorites South Kingstown and Cranston East suffered their first losses of the season, undefeated West Warwick found itself in a precarious position against winless Chariho at halftime.
Even though the Wizards held a seven-point lead on the Chargers after 24 minutes, theywere outplayed by the Chargers as sophomore Colton Place and junior Chris Cole routinely ran the ball through the West Warwick defense in the second quarter.
But, everything changed in the second half. The lackadaisical approach the Wizards took to playing defense in the first half was nowhere to be found in the final two periods.
West Warwick’s Brent Reed, Charley Parent and Alex Osman dominated the line of scrimmage, while Reuben Paygai accounted for 308 yards of offense and three touchdowns in the Wizards’ 28-7 victory Sunday night.

For more, read the 10/8 edition of the Chariho Times

By JAMES BESSETTE
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WAKEFIELD — It took about the midway point of the first half against Burrillville on Monday for the Prout boys soccer team to gel and find its rhythm in a solid 5-1 win over the Broncos.
Yet, that sort of play hasn’t been much of a surprise to anyone associated with the Crusaders.
Life on the pitch was anything but a pleasure for Prout through the first three matches of the regular season in trying Exeter-West Greenwich and then back-to-back losses at home to III-South powers in West Warwick and Tiverton.

For more, read the 10/6 edition of the Narragansett Times