Thursday, March 19, 2015: Ryan, Brozoski win top BCANY awards

   Leading off today: Matt Ryan and Lauren "Boogie" Brozoski have earned the state's top basketball honor from the Basketball Coaches Association of New York.

   Ryan, the Iona Prep wing heading to Notre Dame in the fall, was selected Mr. New York Basketball. Brozoski, the Long Island Lutheran guard who has signed with Michigan, was named Miss New York Basketball.

   The BCANY made the announcement Thursday morning. The selection process included voting for seniors by BCANY and media members as well as committee deliberations.

   Ryan missed most of his junior season due to a hip injury that required surgery. After returning to full strength late in the summer, he helped Iona Prep to its first Archdiocesan AA championship game in school history. The season ended with a 50-48 loss to Xaverian on March 10.

   Brozoski has been a big name in New York girls basketball since joining the varsity. The 5-foot-5 guard, who was named Gatorade's New York player of the year last week, is a two-time MVP of the Federation Tournament. She is averaging 18.2 points and seven assists for LuHi entering next week's Federation tournament in Albany.

   Ryan was selected for his award over fellow finalists Jessie Govan of Wings Academy, Kinnon LaRose of Ogdensburg Free Academy and Jordan Roland of Westhill. Brozoski was selected over fellow finalists Amanda Schiefen of Horseheads, Jalay Knowles of Ossining, McKenna Maycock of Randolph and Brianna Fraser of South Shore.

   Isaiah Whitehead of Abraham Lincoln was the 2014 Mr. New York Basketball award winner, and Mariah Ruff of Oneonta was selected Miss New York Basketball.

   More information: Past boys winners. Past girls winners.

   Lancaster protest: Several hundred Lancaster High School students walked out of class Thursday at about 7:50 a.m. to protest against the school board's decision Monday to drop the Redskins nickname and mascot.

   The students stopped outside the school administration building, the middle school and back to the administration building before returning to the high school about 9:20 a.m., The Buffalo News reported.

   Lancaster police kept a large presence, stopping traffic as the students walked down community streets, the paper reported.

   It's that time again: If it's mid-March, it's time for The Post-Star to roll out its always-fabulous online presence for the NYSPHSAA boys basketball final fours in Glens Falls.

   The 2015 edition of the website can be viewed here.

   Day calls it a day: Best wishes go out to Watertown sportswriter John Day, who retired this week after a 42-year career covering high school, college and community sports.

   "I know it's a cliche," he wrote in his farewell column. "But doing this job has never been like a real job. I got paid to cover sporting events, and the people that participated in those contests. All the while I met and interacted with coaches, players, officials, fans and readers with whom I might never had met if not for doing this job.

   "The life-long friendships I've made through my work have been so meaningful. Sports brings out the good and bad in people. But I can honestly say that throughout my career of covering mostly high school and college sports, I've met very few people who I disliked. And even fewer that considered sports anything but a learning experience for life."

   I'm open to suggestions: An old situation with a new twist arose as we compiled the weekly girls basketball state rankings over the weekend. Some background:

   Division I of the Brooklyn-Queens league in the Catholic High School Athletic Association is probably the toughest girls basketball grind in the state. Christ the King, Archbishop Molloy, Bishop Loughlin, The Mary Louis Academy, Nazareth and St. Francis Prep generally play very tough non-league schedules that would break many pretty good NYSPHSAA Class AA teams, and it's why the top of our weekly rankings always include several CHSAA schools.

   On top of that, obviously, is the double round-robin league schedule, which means 10 more mostly tough games. Only the top four teams in the league standings

2015 NYSPHSAA boys basketball brackets 2015 NYSPHSAA girls basketball brackets 2015 NYSPHSAA boys hockey brackets N.Y. wrestling championships (PDF): Div. I | Div. II N.Y. indoor track championships: Boys | Girls

advance to the CHSAA's Class AA playoffs; the other two are relegated to the Class A tournament, which is usually stacked to begin with. In 2011, Molloy worked its way through the field to win the Federation Class A championship with an 18-13 final record. The following year, Loughlin did the same with a 15-12 mark.

   And then this year's playoffs started. Having finished fifth and sixth, Nazareth and St. Francis Prep were moved to Class A for the tournament. St. Francis Prep ended up losing a close opener to a good Cardinal Spellman team, but Nazareth rolled with wins vs. Moore Catholic, Spellman and then Kellenberg Memorial to reach the Federation tournament in Albany March 27-29.

   So what's the problem?

   Well, Nazareth's record is 9-19, including a nine-game losing streak late in the season. The Lady Kingsmen have lost to teams from five states, including a 90-39 blowout at the hands of Hartford's Capital Prep (24-1) and a squeaker to Mays High (27-3) in Atlanta.

   Quite frankly, there are too many questions when trying to figure out how to rank Nazareth. Are the Class AA? Class A? How many losses are too many, even when the season remains alive and the schedule has been borderline impossible?

   For the time being, Nazareth remains unranked. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

   Done in by 'disloyalty'? Joe Sindoni said he was fired as football coach at Cicero-North Syracuse by Superintendent Annette Speach and the school board because he interviewed for the vacant job at Syracuse CBA, Syracuse.com reported this week.

   Sindoni said he was informed Tuesday during a meeting with Speach and AD Tim Bednarski.

   "We feel you've been disloyal," is what Sindoni said Speach told him.

   In a statement, Speach said: "The District's decision not to reappoint Coach Sindoni resulted from the conclusion that the District wants to move in a different direction regarding its Head Football Coach. The District is appreciative of the work that Coach Sindoni did with the football program and, in particular, his work in generating student interest in the football program."

   CBA announced last week it had hired C-NS assistant Casey Brown as its replacement for Joe Casamento, who resigned to take an out-of-state job.

   Sindoni is a 1992 graduate of CBA and was an assistant there for 13 years. His father is on the school's board of trustees.

   After coming to C-NS from Skaneateles, Sindoni went 7-10 in two seasons but was making obvious strides to fix a broken program, Participation was up significantly and the outlook was bullish.