Columbia High School seniors sign letters of intent to play college sports

EAST GREENBUSH, NY » Over the past several months, a common message to student-athletes from their coaches has been to only worry about the things they can control. Columbia High School’s Athletic Director, Mike Leonard, had been waiting to get back to a time where things are back in his control.

That moment was Friday June 5, when the school hosted a socially-distant press conference, where senior athletes signed their official letters of intent to play college sports.

“It’s important to me and the school to be able to recognize our seniors. We have a great group, who have missed so much this spring. I’ve been planning this for the last month and a half and I’m glad that the kids showed up because they worked hard over many, many years and now they have the opportunity to play at the next level,” Leonard said.

Abigail Farnan committed to join the women’s cross country and track team at Union College. Maya MacDonald will participate in gymnastics at the University of New Hampshire and teammate, Kirsten Paultre will attend SUNY Brockport for gymnastics as well.

The Blue Devils will be sending three seniors on to play college soccer. Kyra Russo will be attending SUNY New Paltz in the fall, while Stefanie Simkins will be going to Union College. Tyler Seaburg will be going to Anna Maria College.

Connor Leddick and Garrett McDonald will each be playing football in college. Leddick will signed on to play at Keystone College and McDonald at Macalester College.

Joseph Alamprese and Frank Rainville will be playing basketball at the next level. Alamprese will be attending Castleton University

and Rainville will be going to Clarkson University.

Joshua Mann will be playing tennis at SUNY Oneonta next fall and Collin Dougherty will be playing lacrosse at SUNY Potsdam.

Columbia’s baseball coach, Chris Dedrick spoke about his seniors going on to play college baseball.

“We have Josh Bissallion, a pitcher and first basemen who is a big 6’5”, 240 pounder with a lot of power. He signed his letter of intent to play at The College of Saint Rose, to be coached under Wayne Jones,” Dedrick said.

“Josh was going to be in the middle of our lineup this year. He has a lot of power and is a really good defensive first basemen as well. He will add a lot to Saint Rose’s lineup.”

Zach Eldred will be playing baseball at SUNY Brockport.

“Zach’s going to play for Justin Beach, who is a graduate of Columbia High School. He has a lot of upsides. Left-handed power, power to all fields, good arm and great defender. He should do well up there,” Dedrick added.

The final baseball senior is Kason Romanowski, a big right-handed pitcher who will be playing for Western New England College next year.

“Kason throws in the mid 80’s. He’s a great kid with high academics and will be a great addition to their staff. He had a really nice ceiling and worked really hard in the offseason this year, working on his game and getting stronger,” Dedrick said.

The baseball coach continued, speaking about his senior class as a whole.

“We had a great senior group who have been with our program since seventh grade. They put a lot of work into the game over the years. They’re great leaders and it was a shame not to have them out on the field this year. I think we have a chance to be a contender for Section 2 in AA, which is something you don’t get to say every year,” he said.

“They put a lot of work in this offseason and was probably one of the hardest working groups of kids that we’ve had here. They’re great kids with great attitudes. They’re going to be fine.”