Friday, May 6, 2016: No. 1 Victor rallies past No. 3 Pittsford in lacrosse

   Leading off today: Three of the state's top four boys Class A lacrosse teams lost games Thursday against high-end competition. All three contests featured big second-half rallies.

   Victor still perfect: Top-ranked Victor kept rolling with a 9-6 win on the home field vs. No. 3 Pittsford in a likely preview of the Section 5 championship game later this month.

   Pittsford scored four of the game's first five goals and held a 4-2 advantage at the half before the Blue Devils got rolling. Seniors Austin Jobson, Max Lambert, Dan Barrow and Jamie Trimboli all connected in a 4:14 span shortly after the intermission to put Victor ahead for good at 6-4. After a Panthers tally, Victor senior Ryan Maloney scored late in the third and early in the fourth to give the hosts breathing room.

   "We took a step forward tonight," Victor coach Jim Andre told The Daily Messenger. "We had to come up with some answers, and we did. This helped us get better."

   Tough trip for St. A's: LaxPower.com, which has what are probably the best computer rankings of any website for any H.S. sport in the country, rates Darien (Conn.) as the nation's No. 4 U.S. squad. Much of that respect has been built with success against New York foes.

   Having already dispatched Yorktown, Niskayuna and Manhasset, the Blue Wave made it a clean sweep of New York by edging visiting St. Anthony's, ranked second by the NYSSWA, 8-7.

   Darien rallied from a 7-4 deficit in the fourth quarter and avoided overtime as the Friars' Ryan Rodgers hit pipe with 30 seconds to play. The win avenged a 10-7 loss from a year ago on Long Island.

   "It's great to play," St. Anthony's coach Ken Wieczorek told the Greenwich Time. "We try to book the best teams in the country every year and this has turned into a great rivalry; Jeff (Brameier, Darien's coach) runs a great program year in and year out and it's wonderful to get them on the schedule."

   Connetquot toppled: Mike Lombardi scored off a feed from Conor Smith at 3:03 of overtime to lift 12th-ranked West Islip to a come-from-behind, 10-9 win over No. 4 Connetquot.

   Connetquot had won half a dozen one-goal games this season. In handing the T-Birds their first defeat, West Islip improved to 4-0 in one-goal contests this spring after going 1-2 a year ago.

   "Last year we had a lot of these games, but we were really inexperienced," Smith said. "We're experienced now and in these situations we're very confident in ourselves and knew we could pull it out."

   Collin Grippo (three goals, three assists) and Jake Piccininni (three goals) paced Connetquot to an 8-4 lead late in the third quarter, but Lombardi scored his third off an assist from Smith with 23 seconds left in the third for the Lions, who scored four in a row to tie 8-8 on a goal by Jake Nicolosi with 4:37 remaining in regulation.

   No hits? No problem: Elmira was held hitless in its baseball game vs. Maine-Endwell but pushed across a run in the fourth inning for a 1-0 win in support of a two-hitter from sophomore right-hander Zack Wood.

   Maine-Endwell right-hander Terrance Sinclair held Elmira

hitless over six innings. He struck out four, walked two and hit a batter.

   Shawn Shaylor led off the bottom of the fourth inning with a walk, moved up on a sacrifice and a wild pitch. He came home on a grounder to shortstop by Wood.

   "We just did the small things that put us in position to win and I was pleased with that," Elmira coach Jason Manwaring said. "I don't like getting no-hit, but I'll take a win."

   More baseball: Connor Farrington had two doubles and a single to give Saratoga Catholic Central coach Phonsey Lambert his 499th career victory with a 6-5 decision over Fort Plain.

   Softball: Yorktown edged Brewster 6-4, handing the Bears their first league loss since May 16, 2012, snapping a 30-game winning streak. Nicole Giordano hit a two-run triple -- swinging away on a 3-0 count -- to start the Huskers on their way.

   Rivalry day: The NYSPHSAA website has a nice feature about an idea I'd love to see more rival schools embrace. Fayetteville-Manlius and Jamesville-Dewitt, just six miles apart in Section 3, will go head-to-head in a total of eight softball, baseball and lacrosse contests Saturday.

   Ads John Goodson of J-D and Scott Sugar of F-M pulled the plan together for four varsity and four JV contests.

   "Being in different classifications, the rivalry has been most recently on the non-league end,: Sugar said. "We had thrown around the idea and finally said we need to make this happen."

   The day's activity will conclude with an awards ceremony to present the first Rivalry Cup.

   Lots to read: There's been a slew of good reporting and writing from around the state this week. I'll catch up to all of it over the weekend, starting Saturday after the recap of highlights from this morning's NYSPHSAA Executive Committee meeting in Troy.