Leading off today: Queensbury sophomore Brittany LaPlant scored nine goals during a 13-0 girls soccer victory Friday over Hudson Falls, breaking the presumed New York State Public High School Athletic Association record.
Tracy Jarosinski of Holley scored eight in a 1988 game. The National Federation record book lists the U.S. mark as 18 by Jennifer Brelage of Bardstown, Ken., in 2002.
LaPlant has scored 96 career goals just five games into her 10th-grade season, The Post-Star reported.
If nine goals in a blowout strikes you as potentially excessive, the newspaper put the question to the coaches involved. Hudson Falls' coach reportedly told the paper he had no problem with what transpired.
Queensbury coach Jason Tenner said LaPlant played approximately half the game, which he was committed to for his starters due to the observance of Yom Kippur wiping out two days of practice last week and a big league game coming up Tuesday.
Interesting NCAA ruling: Last week's start of the in-person evaluation period of prospective recruits brought with it a huge surprise for college basketball coaches.
Two of the major destinations (I can scarcely bring myself to call them schools no matter how well they might actually help educate students) for top-shelf prospects were declared off-limits for coaches by the NCAA, Yahoo Sports reported this weekend. There's a presumption by some observers that more quasi-prep schools will be added to the restricted list because they are regarded as "non-scholastic" in accordance with a Dec. 19, 2012, NCAA directive.
For now, though, the ban is limited to Findlay Prep in Las Vegas and Huntington (W.Va.) Prep. Neither operates in the traditional sense of a prep school; the elite players take classes at accredited high schools, but the basketball operation is for all practical purposes independent of the school's freshman/JV/varsity structure and more closely resembles an AAU program.
The NCAA has had suspicions about academic transcripts for players coming out of similar environments in the past, to the point of making it impossible for some recruits to gain certification through the NCAA Clearinghouse. In the latest instance, though, the issue based on the NCAA response to an inquiry from the National Association of Basketball Coaches seems to be proper sanctioning.
"A team that is affiliated with a scholastic institution, but not subject to the rules and regulations of a scholastic governing body would be considered a nonscholastic team for purposes of applying the evaluation legislation set forth in Bylaw 13.1.7.8.1-(a)," wrote Jamie Israel from the NCAA's department of academic and membership affairs. "At this time, the AMA staff has been presented fact situations involving two teams, Findlay Prep and Huntington Prep, and has determined that based on the facts presented and the above mentioned legislation and interpretation, both of those teams would be considered nonscholastic teams."
In the short term, the ban has minimal effect on either school. Both are loaded with prospects who will be landing on college campuses next fall, and many of them have already made non-binding commitments. But members of the Class of '15 and beyond, including Rochester's
