Saturday, March 9, 2013: MLK advances with buzzer-beater vs. Bridgehampton

   Leading off today: The New York State Public High School Athletic Association's boys basketball quarterfinals got off to a thrilling start Friday as Martin Luther King ousted Bridgehampton 44-42 in Class D.

   Rajien Griffin’s 3-pointer with less than a second left pulled out the victory and advanced the Tigers to next weekend's semifinals in Glens Falls. Griffin finished with 22 points and seven rebounds.

   Down by one with 15.7 seconds left, the Tigers went to Griffin for the final shot. After the guard’s initial attempt bounced off the front rim, the ball was tipped back to Griffin, who knocked down his second attempt.

   A 12-1 run down the stretch gave Bridgehampton a 37-36 lead with 4:13 remaining, and MLK forward Jermaine Shaw (nine points and 12 rebounds) fouled out midway through the fourth quarter.

   “I had to trust my teammates, trust myself,” Griffin told The Journal News. “There was two seconds on the clock. My coach said shoot and I just let it go.”

   Committed to SU: West Genesee junior running back Naesean Howard has committed to playing football at Syracuse University beginning in 2014.

   ”Syracuse has been my dream school since I was younger,” Howard told Scout.com. “I just love the town of Camillus and I know Coach (Scott) Shafer is going to build a great football program in the upcoming years. I just want to help the program as much as I can.”

   Howard was a third-team all-state selection las fall. He joins Poly Prep defensive tackle Jay Hayes (Notre Dame) on the very short list of early commits thus far.

   Back to court: Section 3 might as well just move its offices to within walking distance of State Supreme Court in Syracuse. For the third time in 16 months -- remember the Skaneateles football team in 2011 and Fayetteville-Manlius hockey last month? -- an attention-getting dispute is heading to court.

   The guardian for Westhill student Juan Carlos Pena filed papers Friday asking for an injunction and temporary restraining order that would allow the baseball prospect to practice with the team while a judge considers a petition to overturn Section 3's ruling denying an extra year of eligibility, The Post-Standard reported.

   Pena, an all-state shortstop in Class B last year, is a candidate to be taken in the Major League Baseball draft this June, and he also has a scholarship to play at Iowa. However, school records indicate that Pena began ninth grade in September 2008, which means his eligibility clock ended last June even though he was only a junior academically.

   According to the paper's timeline, Pena was a freshman at Perth Amboy, N.J., in 2008-09, attended school in the Dominican Republic the following year and attended Westhill the next two school years. The NYSPHSAA rule that Section 3 enforced says that Pena's four-year eligibility clock began ticking when he entered the ninth grade at Perth Amboy.

   The injunction request will be heard at 2 p.m. Tuesday

More N.Y. postseason coverage All sports • NYSSWA site for brackets of tournaments from the past and present seasons. Boys basketball • Status of the 11 sectional tournaments • Road to Glens Falls for scores and stats. • NYSPHSAA tourney brackets • Current state rankings. Girls basketball • Road to Troy for scores and stats. • NYSPHSAA tourney brackets • Current state rankings. Ice hockey • NYSSWA site for tournament brackets. • Current state rankings. Wrestling • 2013 state meet results: D-I | D-II • Final state rankings.

Many reporters use Twitter to deliver remote updates. We track those tweets from a variety of venues 24/7. Visit the page to see what's going on.

in front of Justice James P. Murphy. It's entirely possible Murphy will issue the injunction because there's little to lose by letting Pena practice ahead of the season opener.

   After that, though, it will be up to Pena's lawyer to pull off an improbable win. According to newspaper, the argument is double-pronged. The first point of contention -- that he did not play baseball during his year of school in the Dominican Republic -- will almost certainly be a non-starter in the courtroom.

   The second issue, though, will be trickier. Court papers contend Pena began suffering symptoms of manic depression in the summer of 2010 and received treatment in the Dominican Republic from a psychiatrist. Pena missed more than half of his classes that fall and no credits for that semester.

   There is precedent for medical hardship waivers in the state, but it's not clear how academic standing factors into the decision. Pena's argument would likely be weakened if he had enough credits to graduate in January after nine semesters of high school.

   Section 3's rejection of Pena's petition said he didn’t necessarily need a whole year of high school in order to earn the state standard of 22 credits required for graduation.

   Hall of an idea: The nation's largest youth soccer league, Long Island Junior Soccer League, and Soccer Long Island Magazine have created the Long Island Soccer Player Hall of Fame, with the first induction class this weekend to include former New York Cosmos players Shep Messing (Wheatley) and Paul LeSueur, 13-time MLS all-star Chris Armas (St. Anthony’s) and Kim Wyant, the first goalkeeper for the U.S. Women's National Team.