The Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Association recently honored its top senior student-athletes for each high school. Newburgh Free Academy selected Madison Gravel and Roman D’Alfonso.
Here are their profiles:
Madison Gravel
Class rank: 2
Varsity sports: Volleyball; softball; wrestling team manager
Athletic honors: Softball – high academic average award; Goldback award for productivity and sportsmanship; high academic average award; team rookie of the year; Wrestling – Section 9 team manager of the year
Academic honors, extracurricular activities: Salutatorian; National Honor Society; Tri-M music honor society; Spanish and science honor societies; music council delegate; Interact Club; A Cappella chorus; Madrigals select chorus president; featured poet in NFA’s Colonnade
Community service: Volunteer for backpack snack attack, stuff the bus events; spring and summer NFA softball clinics, Greater Newburgh symphony orchestra; NFA stage lighting crew; Beacon Xtreme 18-under Palisi travel softball captain
Future plans: SUNY New Paltz, majoring in speech pathology; compete in softball
Roman D’Alfonso
Class rank: 3
Varsity sports: Indoor and outdoor track and field
Athletic honors: Indoor track and field – Section 9 champ and weight throw school record; Outdoor track and field – National top-10 hammer throw and school record
Academic honors, extracurricular activities: National Honor Society; New York state science honor society; Spanish honor society; Cyber Patriot platinum; student council; Johns Hopkins ISPEED intern
Community service: Blood drive volunteer; Senior visits at Newburgh Armory Unity Center
Future plans: Columbia University, majoring in engineering; compete in track and field
Recent Newburgh scholar-athletes
2025 – Emily Leonard; Henry Goings-Perrot
2024 – Malia Robinson; Matt Patterson
This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: Above and beyond – Here are Newburgh Free Academy’s scholar athletes for 2025-26
Reporting by Ken McMillan, Middletown Times Herald- Record / Times Herald-Record
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Ken McMillan, Middletown Times Herald- Record | USA TODAY Network
