Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2014: Arlington keeps rolling in boys soccer

   Leading off today: Arlington, top-ranked in the NYSSWA's boys Class AA soccer ratings, registered its seventh straight victory Tuesday by beating No. 9 John Jay East Fishkill 1-0.

   George Pogyo scored off an assist from Dylan Ashong with 12 minutes remaining. Ryan Wilson finished with six saves for the shutout.

   "It was a great match, typical Arlington-Jay matchup with two very good teams playing hard," Admirals coach Craig Sanborn told the Poughkeepsie Journal. "What I'm learning is we are smaller than we were last year, but we are just as tough. These young kids are showing us a lot with their toughness and it was one of my fears with this match. We only have a few guys who have experienced this type of match. They did a great job."

   Scoring frenzy: Mamaroneck gave away all of a three-goal lead in the second half and then recovered for a 5-4 girls soccer victory over Ursuline.

   Abigail Dolgos' third goal of the day, with just 10 seconds remaining in regulation, pulled Ursuline into a tie. Paulina Paras scored for Mamaroneck early in the first OT, only to see Dolgos notch her fourth goal with about 1:30 left.

   The tie didn't last, though, as sophomore Olivia Rodrigues netted her own fourth goal of the day in the second overtime and Mamaroneck secured the win.

   Awards time: And today's award for the best throw-away remark to conclude a soccer notebook goes to Greg Brownell at The Post-Star:

   "I was hugged by a referee today. Don't ask me to explain that."

   Football rankings: Four of the five defending NYSPHSAA tournament champions are starting the 2014 season at No. 1 in the New York State Sportswriters Association rankings released Wednesday morning.

   Canisius is the top-ranked Class AA squad following its 34-0 Week 2 win over defending NYSPHSAA champion Aquinas. The Little Irish Open the year at No. 11. Canisius and No. 3 Jamestown are on a collision course for a Sept. 26 game at Jamestown.

   The other No. 1 teams this week are Queensbury (Class A), three-time defending state champ Maine-Endwell (B), Chenango Forks (C) and Randolph (D).

   Babylon, which won a Long Island bowl championship in 2013 to share the top spot in the NYSSWA Class C rankings, moved up in class this fall and starts the year at No. 7 in "B." Randolph starts off atop the "D" rankings despite an opening 24-12 loss to Maple Grove/Chautauqua Lake, which opens at No. 4 in Class C.

   Links to the class-by-class football rankings as well as our ratings in other sports throughout the school year can be found on the NYSSWA rankings home page.

   Still on the job: The 2014 season marks the 45th consecutive year that retired Post-Standard preps guru Neil Kerr is editing the New York State Sportswriters football rankings. Organization co-founders Chuck Korbar and Larry Serrell handled the responsibility for the first three years (1967-69).

   "Chuck asked me to do the job 'for a year or two' starting in 1970," Kerr recalled this week. "This is my 45th season, so if anyone else wants to do the rankings 'for a year or two,' let me know please."

   Neil's joking about that (we hope), but now is as good a time as any to remind our readers that we welcome any interest you might have in assisting us in a variety of roles. For instance, we are currently looking for someone interested in taking over as the girls basketball editor with responsibility for handling the weekly rankings in Classes AA, A and B.

   Also, I've responded to email inquiries from readers by noting that we'd love to be able to provide weekly rankings in boys volleyball, girls volleyball, field hockey, boys swimming and girls swimming but simply do not have the infrastructure to support it. On the other hand, if you have an interest in putting together the network of helpers necessary to make it work, send me an email.

   No surgery needed: The broken left (non-throwing) wrist of Aquinas junior quarterback Jake Zembiec, the state's Class AA player of the year last fall, will not require surgery, the Democrat and Chronicle reported.

   Zembiec will be in a cast for up to six weeks but could return for the Section 5 playoffs.

   "He's going to have a cast and do some rehab," Aquinas coach Chris Battaglia said. "I told him that I don't want him to do anything to jeopardize his career after high school."

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   Aquinas has moved junior receiver Jamir Jones to quarterback.

   Ex-Riverside coach dies: Charlie Dingboom, best known for his tenure as football coach at Buffalo Riverside from 1959-1989 -- with a career record of 120-94-11 and a 41-game winning streak in the 1960s -- died Sunday at the age of 88.

   "The world is a lesser place today without our Coach," 1961 Riverside graduate Bill Marble told The Buffalo News. "His passing leaves a great void in my heart that will never be filled. He was a man whose life touched so many of us. He was truly one in a million."

   Dingboom totaled 61 seasons coaching with stops at UB and Kensington before moving on to Riverside as a head coach. After retiring from Riverside in 1989, he spent six seasons as an assistant coach for Kenmore East and then helped out at Nichols from 2000-2012.

   A Carrier Dome first: Baldwinsville and Cicero-North Syracuse will meet Nov. 21 in the first high school hockey game played in the Carrier Dome in Syracuse. It will be the kickoff to a set of games capped by an AHL contest between the Syracuse Crunch and Utica Comets the following day.

   Last season, Frontier Field in Rochester hosted a "Frozen Frontier" week that included nine outdoor high school games over two days.

   New job for ex-NY great: Charlie Kern, a distance-running standout at Sweet Home in the mid-1980s who went on to a stellar SEC career at Kentucky, has landed one of the most visible jobs in American high school track and field -- head coach at York High in Elmhurst, Ill.

   Kern replaces longtime coach Stan Reddel who retired in May after leading the Dukes to another state championship. Kern was been an assistant cross country and track coach at the school until 2006. York won eight state championships in his 10 years there.

   Kern becomes just the fourth head coach since 1934 at York, where the line of accomplished scholastic distance runners has been comparable to what used to be the history of linebackers at Penn State and quarterbacks at the University of Miami.

   He was a nine-time all-stater at Sweet Home and set a Section 6 record in the 1,600 meters that stood for 27 years.

   Care to help? We ended publication of the New York State Sportswriters Association newsletter in the summer of 2012. Most of the membership fee up until then went toward the 46-50 newsletters per year, but what was left after printing and postage helped defray other expenses.

   Now, online ads cover the expense of providing rankings, news and reference material to readers of NewYorkSportswriters.org and its related sites such as RoadToSyracuse.com, which has allowed us to drop the membership fee.

   If you enjoy our content and feel inclined to help, we do maintain a page that allows contributions via PayPal transfers and encourage you to check it out.

   Extra points: Ossining senior point guard Stefanie Svoboda will continue her basketball career at Division II Pace University on a full scholarship next fall, coach Dan Ricci reports.