Leading off today: Henry Grass is in good company for now, but he'll undoubtedly be leaving them in his rear-view mirror by the time his high school lacrosse career winds down in six weeks or so.
Grass, a Bronxville senior, became the leading scorer in Section 1 history on Thursday with an assist on a Robbie Westerfield goal early in the second quarter of a 20-5 win over Croton. The Johns Hopkins recruit, who has 244 goals and 151 assists since beginning his varsity career in eighth grade, eclipsed the 393 points by 1983 graduate Tom Nelson and 392 by Tim Nelson. The Nelsons went on to star at Syracuse University.
"I've only heard about the Nelson brothers," Grass told The Journal News. "I heard they were great players, so it's a great feat, but we have to finish up the season. It's a personal achievement, and we're a team, so I'm thinking more about winning another state championship."
Tom Nelson passed along congratulations as well as a zinger befitting the SU-Johns Hopkins rivalry.
"I think it's great somebody else gets to hold the record now," he said. "It's just unfortunate he's going to Hopkins."
What a leap: Cardozo senior Marie-Josee Ebwea-Bile placed third in the triple jump Thursday at the Penn Relays, but her 42-1.25 effort broke the state outdoor record.
She doubled in the long and triple jumps in the state indoor meet last month in Ithaca, winning the TJ by more than two feet. BTW, the Penn winner was Jamaican Tamara Moncrieffe with a startling mark of 43-10.
On the move: Former Dobbs Ferry standout Eric Paschall, the state's Class B player of the year in 2013 in boys basketball, will transfer to Villanova.
Paschall led Fordham in scoring this season as a freshman at 15.9 points a game to earn Atlantic 10 rookie of the year honors but wanted to explore options in the wake of the firing of coach Tom Pecora. He will not be eligible until the 2016-17 season, but will have three years of eligibility with the Wildcats. The 6-foot-6 wing was also in talks with Florida, Kansas and Providence.
Softball schedule: There's some pretty good softball scheduled for this weekend in Central New York, with three major tournaments on the schedule.
Among them is the Northstar Elite Weekend at Gillette Sports Complex in Cicero, where five state-ranked teams will be among 15 squads competing. Among the matchups Saturday is Cohoes, ranked third in the state in Class B, vs. No. 15 Eden. Before that, though, Eden played Jamesville-DeWitt, ranked 11th in Class A.
"There are so many great teams in New York State, we wanted to create the opportunity to match some of these schools up with each other that might not typically meet in the regular season," Jamesville-DeWitt coach Phil DeAugustine told Syracuse.com.
The Vernon-Verona-Sherrill Intersectional Showdown brings together another dozen teams, including Class B No. 1 Windsor.
And at the Mudville Complex, Elmira Heights Edison (13th in Class C) vs. Holland Patent (20th b) concludes a 10-game Saturday schedule.
The full schedules for all three events can be found here.
I spoke too soon: In yesterday's blog I passed along two wacky Section 5 baseball games from Wednesday. Had I looked a bit more thoroughly, I would have also caught a crazy local softball game.
