Wednesday, July 23, 2014: The New York high school year in review

[From Page 6]

    • Brothers Lyle and Miles Thompson, Albany's outstanding duo by way of LaFayette in Section 3, became the first Native Americans and first co-recipients of the Tewaaraton Award, college lacrosse's equivalent of the Heisman Trophy.

    • UConn women's basketball went 40-0 and won the NCAA Division I championship with a huge New York presence. Breanna Stewart (Cicero-North Syracuse) averaged 19.4 points/8.1 rebounds and Stefanie Dolson (Minisink Valley) averaged 12.5/9.3. In the backcourt, Bria Hartley (North Babylon) was the Huskies' No. 2 scorer at 16.2 points a game to go along with 173 assists. Freshman Saniya Chong (Ossining) added 4.7 points a game and finished with an assists to turnovers ratio of 60 to 27.

A few more memorable moments

    • Williamsville South, trailing 4-0 with two outs in the seventh inning and twice down to its last strike, won the Section 6 Class A softball championship over Starpoint as senior Brianna Clark slugged a three-run, walk-off homer for a 6-4 triumph. It was the start of a run that saw Williamsville South win a state championship.

    • Carmel senior Jasmine Ennabe racked up 28 strikeouts in the Rams' 5-4 softball win over Brewster in 13 innings, setting the presumed NYSPHSAA record for K's in a game. Chelsea Hawks of Shoreham-Wading River fanned 27 batters in a 13-inning game last season.

    • Corning freshman Jessica Lawson won the 3,000 meters at the NYSPHSAA state track and field meet at Cicero-North Syracuse to complete the distance hat trick for the year, having previously won titles in cross country and in the 3,000 in indoor track and field.

    • Tappan Zee junior Luke Gavigan won the boys invitational mile in near-record time at the Millrose Games. He crossed the finish line in 4:08.96 -- third in state history and the fastest Millrose time since New Jersey star Kevin Byrne set the meet record of 4:08.0 in 1977.

    • Senior Dontay Caruthers of Rochester East dropped 50 and 53 points in consecutive boys basketball games.

Grace after adversity

   What had moments earlier looked like a bell-lap rally into a potential meet record turned into a second-place showing for a senior who came into the meet with the nation's No. 1 time this spring.

    "Well, I ran a good 2,990 meters. The last 10 were pretty rough," Corning senior John McCarthy told the Press & Sun-Bulletin after stumbling on the final barrier of the boys steeplechase in the state track meet.

Strange but true

   Finally, here are some of the oddball stories from around the state that caught our attention:

    • Southern Cayuga fielded just eight players for a softball game vs. Moravia but still walked away with a 4-1 victory.

    • The refs in a varsity girls basketball game got confused and turned the third overtime between Silver Creek and Dunkirk into a sudden-death affair, mistakingly citing a rule used in modified basketball.

    • John Parks, an assistant hockey coach at Syracuse CBA, signed a professional contract ... at the age of 46. The Syracuse Crunch of the American Hockey League tendered a one-day contract as an emergency backup after injuries forced the Tampa Bay Lightning to recall Crunch goalies Cedrick Desjardins and Kristers Gudlevskis.

    • In one of the more courageous coaching decisions of the year, Cobleskill's John Quimby subbed high-scoring forward Morgan Loder into the nets for the penalty-kick shootout and beat Queensbury in the Section 2 girls Class A soccer semifinals.

    A mind-boggling 25 boys from across made college lacrosse commitments by the end of their freshman year. The non-binding decisions includes nine players opting for Atlantic Coast Conference squads and three for the Ivy League.

    • Leading 7-6, 5-2 and having already held a match point, Eastchester senior Taiyo Hamanaka had to forfeit the state tennis final in boys singles to Webster Schroeder sophomore Matt Gamble after experiencing severe cramps.

    • Veteran Greece Athena boys soccer coach Bill Hueber was denied reappointment to the job in a 4-3 vote. What proved to be the deciding vote was cast by a school board member who had once been cut from the team by Hueber.

On the 2014-15 radar

    A blog item we published in mid-September noted the decision by juniors Kena Gilmour of New Paltz and Anthony Salmon of Newburgh to transfer to 2013 NYSPHSAA boys basketball tournament finalist John S. Burke Catholic, which had recently been elevated to Class AA by the Section 9 non-public school reclassification committee.

    Little did the public know that there was a bigger storm ahead.

    In what will certainly be one of the most closely watched stories of the next school year, Section 9 is investigating allegations by five schools that the Burke Catholic program improperly recruited a number of players.

    Middletown Superintendent Ken Eastwood initiated the probe on behalf of his district, Washingtonville, Monroe-Woodbury, New Paltz and Valley Central, and hired a Long Island law firm to conduct a nine-month investigation. The firm's eight-page report listed 10 specific allegations of recruiting, and Burke Catholic assistant coach Bobby Rahn is mentioned in nine -- largely tied to his AAU team -- The Times Herald-Record reported.

    The stakes are high for all parties. A collaboration by five members of a section to investigate a fellow member appears to be unprecedented, and a finding by Section 9 of serious breaches of conduct by Burke Catholic would likely trigger severe sanctions against Burke Catholic.