GAME TIME - It's the time to celebrate winners and championships

It's difficult to masquerade shortcomings and inadequacies for any length of time in just about any sport. As October and the fall sports season winds down the mask that hid some weaknesses or pseudo-talent begins to fall away.

Trickery works only so far. Coaches prepare, kids execute, and past ghosts are exorcised and true championship performances emerge.

Several local student-athletes are in the mix for individual and team championships as this week unfolds. The Interscholastic League tennis title matches were completed last weekend. Cross-country class and state meets will be run on upcoming consecutive weekends at Ponaganset and soccer championships are down for next weekend at Rhode Island College. Football has another month-plus to run.

The post-season spotlight falls first on the varsity soccer programs at Smithfield where the boys and girls had most successful seasons together for the first time in several years. The ladies won 13 matches and the lads captured 10. Both sides played to a combined seven ties. The girls lost just once, the boys thrice. If you're into stats that's a win

Credit rightfully goes to a couple of long-time coaches and the assistants they brought in to help. Bob Squillante, the quiet type, has been on the girls' sideline for most of the Millennium. Bill Hickey, the "convincer" who can charm a referee into allowing the keeper to wear her team colors look-a-like jersey or a Dalmatian off a fire truck and who moves kids on the turf like chessboard pieces along with volunteer Erika Prairie who played in the system have helped "Squib" push the Sentinels to unprecedented success this fall.

Steve Votolato has had to deal with much more pressing off-field situations than soccer over the past two years while watching the boys program come 180 degrees from a miserable one-win season three years back to the heady numbers of 2009. Few other high school mentors enjoy the luxury of a staff such as his. Mark Gilchrist's name and accomplishments ares forever etched in Sentinel soccer lore.

A four-year varsity player three decades ago, he became the most prolific scorer in school history, then went on to greater glory as a professional in Europe and in the U.S. Paul Ruhle, like Prairie, is a product of the SHS program who served as team captain and quietly shows his pride in being in position to come back and help his alma mater.

Tonight (Thursday), weather-permitting and dependent on the playoff bracketing set last weekend, Smithfield will host a unique quarter-final playoff twin bill on the Boyle pitch with the girls kicking it off at 5:30 and the boys two hours later.

The football playoff picture won't be developed for another couple of weeks but, last Friday night, Scituate took a large step into the Division IV post-season mix when they routed Central Falls by a 38-22 margin and improved their league record to 3-1, good for a second place tie, with four contests remaining, three of them at home. The Spartans rejoined RIIL football three years ago after a two-decade absence, struggled at the beginning, then hit their scoring peak against an established CF program.

How 'bout the seasons the girls at Smithfield and Ponaganset "strung" together on the tennis court this fall! Veteran coach Ted Burns' Chieftains won 12 of 15 matches in Division III, defeated Chariho in the playoffs after losing to them in the regular season, then competed for the state title against Portsmouth last Sunday.

Adam Spring and Mark Atkinson helped a strong group of underclass Lady Sentinels as well as experienced seniors to a 10-3 record in II-North and followed that up with two post-season wins over Westerly and old foe Cumberland. The Sentinels faced defending champion Moses Brown at Slater Park last Sunday afternoon, and, they claimed their first Division state championship over the defending champs by a 4-2 margin.

It was a most satisfying conclusion to a solid season in which they had lost matches to both the Clippers and the Quakers, then reversed matters when it counted most.

There's more. Burns and Spring will lose just four seniors from their ladders to graduation in June so there is a wealth of tennis talent coming back to both schools for 2010.

The fall girls volleyball regular season winds up today and keep a back-and-forth eye on Sally Stacey's Scituate six. Last night (Wednesday) was Seniors Night and the blues were attempting to finish up at 13-3 and a strong seeding in the playoffs.

Congratulations to good friend Larry Sasso who was inducted into the Smithfield Heritage Hall of Fame this week. Sasso, former Managing Editor of the Observer and current co-owner and publisher of Your Smithfield Magazine, gave this observer his start in this sports-writing business nearly twenty years ago. It's still fun.