Five Clarkstown South seniors gathered after school Wednesday in the principal’s office, but no-one was in any sort of trouble.
Instead, the five athletes were there to announce where they will each attend college next year. Kristian Alleyne will head to Rutgers to play lacrosse, Eric Farm will swim at Binghamton, Terese Buechli will join the lacrosse team at American University, Michael McCahey will play basketball at Saint Anselm College and Brian Foley will swim at the University of Pennsylvania.
Some knew which college they were going to attend during the summer, and others decided just last week, but all seemed to agree it was nice to get that decision out of the way, especially those who play winter sports and have seasons starting.
“It definitely takes some weight off my shoulders,” Foley said.
Foley said he picked UPenn because of the athletics and academics. Like most of the others announcing their college choices on Wednesday, Foley has played multiple sports. He said around his junior year he first started thinking he could swim in college, and knew he had to focus on just one sport.
“When you swim everyday all year, it starts to eliminate some other extracurriculars,” he said. “It kind of made the choice itself.”
Foley, who placed 18th in last season’s 100-yard backstroke at the NYS Swimming & Diving Federation Championships, was accepted into Penn’s Wharton School of Business, which he will attend in the fall.
Terese Buechli said she’s always wanted to be a college athlete, whether it was in basketball or lacrosse.
“I’ve been playing basketball longer, but really found my true talent in lacrosse,” she said. “It was just what I was better at.”
Buechli finished her junior year with 65 points, including 48 goals and 17 assists. She had a three goals per game average, and scored eight in the season opener in South’s 19-12 win against Carmel.
At American, she said she hopes to study international relations and finance.
McCahey played three sports in middle school, but always knew he wanted to play basketball in college.
“Basketball’s always been my main sport since I was younger,” he said. “It’s always been a major goal of mine, even when I was younger.”
He said once he got to high school he thought he should concentrate only on basketball because that’s what he loved most. So far it’s paid off for McCahey, who averaged 19 points a game his sophomore year and 21 points and 10 rebounds a game last year. Heading into his senior year, he has 954 career points.
He said he picked Saint Anselm College, located in Manchester, New Hampshire, because he felt like he will fit in nicely with the program.
Alleyne said it was around his sophomore or junior year when he thought it was a realistic possibility to play lacrosse in college. He also plays football, but said the choice as to which sport to really focus in on was pretty simple.
“I found that I was a lot better at lacrosse than at football,” Alleyne said.
With the pressure of choosing a college out of the way, Alleyne said he’s ready for his senior year to get under way.
“I’m excited to push myself harder this year and have a great season,” he said.
Alleyne said he liked a lot of things about Rutgers, including that it’s not too far away. The goalie, who’s a captain of the lacrosse team, said he plans on attending Rutgers’ School of Education in hopes of becoming a history teacher.
Farm said he’s focused only one sport, and has been swimming his whole life so it just made sense to continue.
“Why not continue what you love to do when you’ve been doing it such a long time?” he said.
Farm finished ninth in the 100-yard backstroke at last season’s NYS Swimming & Diving Federation Championships. At Binghamton he plans on studying political science.
