News, notes and observations on New York high school sports
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Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015: State indoor track meet heading to Staten Island
Leading off today: The NYSPHSAA is poised to move another of its championship events to a new, state-of-the-art facility.
Meeting via teleconference on Sunday, the New York State Public High School Athletic Association staff and its indoor track committee recommended moving the annual championship to the $93 million Ocean Breeze Track and Field Facility slated to open this fall on Staten Island.
If approved next month by the NYSPHSAA Executive Committee, the three-year contract will take effect in 2017. The 2016 meet remains slated for Barton Hall at Cornell University in Ithaca, which has hosted since 2006.
The 135,000-square foot facility won out over presentations by Ithaca College and The Armory in New York City. The Ocean Breeze track can be configured for six or eight lanes and can utilize hydraulics to create banked turns.
The CHSAA intersectionals and numerous college conference championships are already scheduled for the 2016 season at the new facility, which has seating for about 2,500 spectators.
Earlier this year, the NYSPHSAA opted to move its boys hockey semifinals and finals to HarborCenter in Buffalo after more than a quarter of a century in Utica.
Enough is enough: The good news is that high school football made national news again without the story involving a player assaulting an official. The bad news is that the story this time is that one player belted an unprotected opponent's head with a helmet.
The incident took place during a game between New Jersey high schools Immaculata and Linden on Friday. An unidentified Linden defensive lineman pulled the helmet off an Immaculata player, and then took a swing with it and striking the Immaculata opponent in the head.
NJ.com reported the injured player required 10 stitches and that police were looking into the incident. Amazingly, the Linden player was assessed a personal foul penalty but not ejected.
"When I saw the video, I contacted the NJSIAA and Steve Yesinko, the Linden athletic director," Immaculata AD Tom Gambino said. "And I just wanted to say that the Athletic director and coach have been very cooperative, very apologetic. We've been in touch the whole time, and their first concern was how our kid was doing, and he is doing fine."
Rankings progress: Three Section 4 teams are ranked No. 1 in the season's first set of New York State Sportswriters
The Southern Tier's Maine-Endwell (Class A), Chenango Forks (C) and Tioga (D) are joined at No. 1 by Canisius in Class AA and Schalmont in B.
The first set of girls soccer ratings was also released. Massapequa holds down the top spot in Class AA, with Somers (A), Schalmont (B), Haldane (C) and Poland (D) also rated No. 1.
Links to all the latest NYSSWA ratings can be found on our rankings page.
Disciplinary action: Poughkeepsie is forfeiting its Week 3 football game in the wake of an incident on the team bus returning from a game at Port Jervis last Friday, according to Hudson Valley Sports Report.
Poughkeepsie officials made the announcement Monday. The team was to have played Saugerties this Friday.
According to HVSR, several players got into heated arguments on the bus following the loss to Port Jervis. Players re-grouped on Saturday morning and signed contracts of behavior, the website reported.
A statement from Superintendent Nicole Williams posted on the district website said in part:
"Our goal in the Poughkeepsie City School District is to build character, hard work, discipline, commitment, and sportsmanship through our robust program of interscholastic athletics. We set a standard of excellence with the goal that every Pioneer is a scholar and athlete. Our staff members in the Poughkeepsie City School District invest tremendous time, energy, and effort to ensure that our interscholastic athletics program is successful. All varsity football team members will engage in positive community service on Friday, September 18, 2015 in lieu of participating in Friday's game."
Milestone: Midlakes won a pair of boys volleyball matches Saturday, giving coach Kyle Salisbury career win No. 300.
Extra points: Granville and Saranac Lake have managed to make lemonade out of lemons. Their football teams will play Saturday at Ticonderoga after their originally scheduled games were scrapped. Granville was to play Cairo-Durham, which dropped its varsity before the season started, and Saranac Lake was to meet Saranac, which had to abandon its season after a Week 1 loss
