Saturday, April 18, 2015: Southworth picks up 700th baseball victory

   Leading off today: Syracuse City School District baseball coach Bob Southworth recorded a milestone victory Friday with a 2-1 win over Liverpool.

   Southworth, who co-coaches the squad with Mike Meola, picked up his 700th win in 50 years in the dugout. He began coaching varsity baseball at Corcoran High in 1966 and is now 700-395, putting him five wins behind Section 5 legend Ed Nietopski for third place on the all-time NYSPHSAA list.

   Syracuse CSD took advantage of four Liverpool errors to edge the Warriors despite being outhit by a 10-2 margin.

   Afterward, Southworth, 79, told Syracuse.com he will retire at the end of the season. "This is it," he said. "This year, we're done."

   More big numbers: It's a milestone kind of day in this edition of the New York State Sportswriters Association blog:

    • Minisink Valley softball coach Bruce Guyette posted career win No. 500 as the Warriors rallied past Pine Bush 3-2 on Cassidy Smith's two-run double in the top of the sixth inning.

    • Rebecca Rogers pitched a perfect game for Hamilton in a season-opening, 7-0 softball win over Oriskany, and the senior also rang up her 1,000th career strikeout. She fanned 18 batters overall, including 12 in a row.

    The University of Rhode Island recruit has 1,014 strikeouts and a 79-9 record in her six-year career at Hamilton.

    • In alumni news, SUNY Albany star Lyle Thompson became NCAA Division I lacrosse's all-time leading scorer Tuesday with two goals and an assist in a 10-8 win vs. Bryant.

    The former Salmon River and LaFayette High star has 155 goals and 202 assists for 357 points, three more than the previous record by Cornell's Rob Pannell from 2009-13. Thompson is 17 away from the all-time career assist record set in 1985 by Tim Nelson, who played at North Carolina State and Syracuse.

    Thompson is the only player in Division I history with two 100-point seasons. He's on pace for another with 32 goals and 46 assists.

   A very complicated dispute: I've written briefly -- probably too briefly, actually -- before about the impending changes to NYSPHSAA transfer rules that will further restrict transfers by athletes beginning this fall.

   The Democrat and Chronicle went a bit more in depth Saturday morning on the topic while tackling a much more complicated transfer dispute that has been simmering since last fall even if it isn't directly related to the new rules.

   Reporter Brian Sharp told the story of lacrosse players Bryce and Evan Kelly, brothers who transferred from Honeoye Falls-Lima to Aquinas but were denied a waiver that would have allowed them to compete this spring. In

Get all the N.Y. boys lacrosse info

fact, the brothers are not even allowed to practice with the Little Irish.

   "To not even let them practice, that I don't understand," said the boys' father Mike Kelly, who was their coach at HF-L last season. "This is their one time. This is their one shot."

   The Kelly family sought relief from Section 5 on the grounds that the boys were being harassed and bullied enough at their old school to warrant transferring. The situation became an issue in the fall, after Mike Kelly learned he would not be brought back this fall as the coach, but Section 5 Executive Director Ed Stores turned down a waiver request, writing, "It seems clear that hostilities between the parent(s) and the district led to the transfers."

   According to the story, Stores also took note that the transfers came on Oct. 20, late in the football season -- raising suspicion that athletic considerations rather than harassment dictated the timing of the move.

   The story is quite lengthy (2,400-plus words), but worth the read for its look at the merits of the upcoming changes to the rules.

   One previously unreported nugget: Aquinas is sitting out active participation in the lawsuit brought against the NYSPHSAA by several private and charter schools over the impending transfer rule changes. Aquinas President Mike Daley told the paper a lawsuit was "not the recourse we would take at this time," an acknowledgement of the school's clumsy and failed attempt in State Supreme Court to get restored to the sectional playoffs after quarterback Jake Zembiec was ruled ineligible.