Mahopac’s Gillian Felix and New Rochelle’s Aysha Williams both signed letters of intent, Felix yesterday and Williams today.

Felix is headed to Caldwell College in New Jersey on a full athletic scholarship. She will immediately be the tallest player on the team, which had just two 6-footers last year, one of whom will graduate. Felix led Mahopac in scoring and rebounding and was a two-time all-section selection.

Williams, a 5-foot-8 guard, signed with St. Thomas Aquinas in Rockland. She signed her letter this afternoon at New Ro. Williams led New Ro in scoring as a senior. She was a three-year starter and won two tournament MVPs as a senior. She was also named team MVP and was all-section honorable mention. Williams will join three other former local players — Natalie Catavero of Maria Regina, Theresa Dowling of Clarkstown North and Kaitlin Page of Pearl River — at St. Thomas Aquinas.

Both Caldwell and St. Thomas Aquinas are Division II programs that give out scholarhips, much like Pace.

Our Westchester/Putnam all-stars and Rockland all-county selections were released today. Porsha Postell (above) of Woodlands was named the player of the year in Westchester/Putnam and Alaina Walker was named the player of the year in Rockland.

Patrice Wallace-Moore (right) of Mount Vernon was named the coach of the year after guiding the young Knights to their first Section 1 title since 1983.

You can read about Postell here. She was joined on the first team by:
Sophia Aleksandravicius, Holy Child
Maggie Blair, Briarcliff
Tori Jarosz, Lakeland
Shanyce Stewart, Mount Vernon

You can find the first-team and coach of the year capsules and the second team and honorable mention selections picks HERE. You can also vote on who you believe should have won the Westchester/Putnam athlete of the season. Ossining wrestler James Brundage won it after winning a state title.

In Rockland, Nanuet’s first-year coach Carlos Fidalgo (right) was named the coach of the year after guiding his team to state and state Federation titles in Class B.

You can read about Walker (left) here. She was joined on the first team by:
K.C. Jentzen, Nanuet
Lauren Kahn, Nanuet
Kristin Schmidt, Suffern
Taylor Wilson, Pearl River

You can find the first-team and coach of the year capsules, and the second team and honorable mention selection picks HERE. It also allows you to vote on who you believed should have won the Rockland athlete of the season. Clarkstown North hockey player Matt Willows won it after breaking the state scoring record and leading his team to the Section 1 quarterfinals.

If anyone has any questions, I’m around to answer them tonight.

Sorry for my absence last week. I was on vacation beginning last Saturday (the 4th), partly for vacation but partly to celebrate our birthdays with my lovely bride. Anyway, I’m back to work today.

Here’s what’s going on…

— The players of the year and all-star/all-county teams (and coaches of the year) will be announced later this week.
— Nanuet did, indeed, meet with Gov. David Patterson last week. What a month it has been for the Golden Knights, who won two state titles, were feted by the town and the county and met the Governor.

— Former Mount Vernon star Kwinnyata Mercer was named first-team Division II junior college all-American. She is believed to be the first first-team all-American from Marshalltown, a school in Iowa.

Here’s a story on the high regard Mercer’s coach hold her in. She finished the season second in her conference in scoring and first in rebounding and did it while shooting 54 percent from the floor. … For comparison’s sake, Marshalltown is Division II NJCAA. Local powerhouse Monroe (the alma mater of Fantasia Goodwin) is Division III.

Nanuet’s celebration went off as planned today, as you can see from the photo above.

You can check out more photos here.

The town of Nanuet will celebrate its champs in a big way tomorrow. The team will be taken on a parade through town by a Nanuet fire truck. The girls will arrive at the Nanuet football field around 1, where all the students in the district will be waiting for them. (The younger students in the district have been big fans during the Golden Knights’ run.)

At the field, several school officials will speak about the team. Nanuet will then share its thoughts with the crowd.

School superintendent Dr. Mark McNeill and AD Frank Mazzuca planned the celebration with the Nanuet Civic Association president Bob Jackson.

Nanuet will also be honored by the Clarkstown Town Board on Apr. 21.

I’ll post some photos from the celebration on the blog tomorrow.