Friday, April 22, 2016: Aquino wins mixed-competition case, plays in match

   Leading off today: A Bronx girl was allowed to suit up for her school's boys volleyball league Thursday after an appellate court judge declined to vacate an order allowing her to participate.

   Senior Anyela Aquino, 17, played for the Taft Educational Campus boys team after a Bronx judge turned down an appeal by the Public School Athletic League on Tuesday.

   "I'm so happy," Aquino told the New York Daily News after recording 20 assists in a two-set loss to Fannie Lou Hamer. "The competition was better than in the girls games. It was fun."

   Aquino drew cheers from a small crowd that included members of her family as well as Robert Siano, a Bronx lawyer who represented her pro bono. Siano won a temporary restraining order last week to keep Aquino on the boys roster.

   Aquino led her school's girls team to a city championship in the fall.

   "I felt so weird at first because I'm not used to playing with the boys," Aquino said. "I couldn't believe it at first, but when I played the boys it made me feel confident so I didn't have that problem."

   On the big screen: A movie about the Salmon River girls lacrosse team made its debut Tuesday during the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and will air Saturday afternoon on ABC.

   Syracuse.com reported the documentary follows the Shamrocks, composed of Native American players from the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, during the 2015 season.

   The documentary delves into how players face obstacles in a sport traditional reserved in their culture for men and boys.

   The TV airing is 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

   Streak ends: Elizabeth LaSalle singled with two outs, advanced on a walk and raced home on a single by Brianna Laureti for the walk-off winning run as Oneida defeated Solvay 5-4 in eight innings in softball on Thursday.

   Oneida snapped Solvay's 62-game winning streak in Section 3 games dating back to 2012. It also ended a run of 77 straight regular-season wins by Solvay vs. Section 3 competition.

   "We know the history of the (Solvay) program," Oneida coach Mike Curro told Syracuse.com. "Whether they've graduated kids or not, how strong they are and what they're capable of doing. We were a little worried when we were down 2-0. We scored four and they came right back at us. That's what Solvay does. ... I'm proud of my kids being able to keep battling, keep battling until they came through at the end with two outs."

   Coaching change: It's not often you can say that a football coach departing with a 15-40 record in six seasons is leaving the program in better condition than he found it. But that's probably the case at Tonawanda, where Rob Gross isn't being brought back after a 3-6 record last fall.

   The school board has appointed Joe Kelly to the job, The Buffalo News reported. Kelly, a former Tonawanda assistant, was defensive coordinator for a Buffalo Burgard

team that lost in the Section 6 Class B final last season.

   Gross, a Tonawanda alumnus, inherited an 0-9 team, went winless in his first season but won 11 of 28 games from 2011-13. The Warriors were mostly a very small Class B school during his six seasons.

   Record broken: Sixth-year Clarke righthander Sarah Cornell became the all-time strikeout leader in Long Island softball history Thursday.

   Cornell struck out the side in the third inning of a 4-1 loss to Carey to break the record of 1,171 set in 2011 by Lindsay Taylor of Kings Park. She fanned 15 in the game.

   "I've been working toward this since seventh grade," the Hofstra recruit told Newsday. "It's been a lot of work and it feels good to be at the top with all the other pitchers that were great on Long Island."

   Cornell was a first-team all-state selection in Class A last season after going 23-3 with 357 strikeouts and leading the Rams to their first Section 8 and Long Island championships.

   Hall of Fame coach dies: Retired Amityville wrestling coach Norm Maisel died April 12 in Sarasota, Fla., at the age of 79, Newsday reported.

   The Marine veteran coached Amityville for 25 years beginning in 1967 and finished 263-84-2 with 10 Suffolk County individual champions. He was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Okla., in 2013.

   "He was pretty unforgettable," his wife Janet said. "He was broad-shouldered and tough, but he had a great sense of humor and there was a tender part of him. He could relate to the kids very naturally, especially kids who came from less fortunate homes."