Leading off today: Seniors Lexi Martins of Irvington and McKenzie Bezon of Elba repeated as state players of the year on the New York State Sportswriters and Coaches Organization for Girls Sports all-state basketball team announced Sunday.
Martins shared the honor in Class B with teammate Brittni Lai. The pair led Irvington to its fourth consecutive New York State Public High School Athletic Association title.
Bezon repeated as the player of the year in Class D. Like Martins and Lai, she was selected to the first team for the third straight year. Bezon was on the Class D third team as a freshman in 2010.
The other players of the year selected by NYSSCOGS are:
• Class AA, Bishop Ford junior Aaliyah Jones.
• Class A, Long Island Lutheran sophomore Boogie Brozowski, a first-team all-state selection a year ago in Class B.
• Class C, seniors Alexandra Flint of Keshequa and Skyler Gausney-Jones of Rochester Bishop Kearney.
The full all-state teams, as well as players and coaches of the year can be found here.
The 2K lists: Two boys and two girls joined the lists of 2,000-point career scorers in the just-concluded N.Y. basketball season.
On the boys list, Joey Lufkin of Argyle finished his career at 2,146 points and Will Thomas of Morrisville-Eaton closed at 2,108.
On the girls list, Kelsey Carey of St. Joseph Hill finished at 2,174 and Carolyn Binder of Rye Country Day ended at 2,034. Ossining's Saniya Chong broke the 2,000-point barrier a season ago as a junior and pushed her final total to 2,988 this season.
Chong stands fourth all-time to Caryn Schoff (St. Johnsville, 3,548), Bethany LeSueur (Garden City, 3,167) and Niesha Butler (Riverdale, 3,127).
By the way, work is progressing on the New York State SPortswriters Association all-state team for boys basketball. We have not yet set a release date, however.
Buzzer-beating bedlam: MaxPreps.com recently posted a compilation of the country's 10 top buzzer-beating shots of the season. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by stating the obvious: New Rochelle's win over Mount Vernon in the Section 1 boys Class AA final is on the list. You can see for yourself how high it rates.
Kickoff Classic schedule: The Carrier Dome in Syracuse will host nine games on the opening weekend of football next September, The Post-Standard reported:
The lineup of Kickoff Classic games released by Section 3 shows:
• Friday, Sept. 6: Syracuse CBA vs. Union-Endicott, 3:30 p.m.; Schenectady vs. Fayetteville-Manlius, 8 p.m.
