Sunday, May 29, 2016: Grieving F-M junior scores to clinch Sec. 3 title game

   Leading off today: Fayetteville-Manlius junior Donovan Welsh scored with under a minute to play to hand the Hornets an 8-7 win over Baldwinsville for the Section 3 boys Class A lacrosse championship Saturday.

   The late heroics came eight days after Welsh lost his father, Bruce, to cancer, and three days after services for the 59-year-old retail developer.

   Welsh told Syracuse.com he didn't know how sick his father was when he returned home May 19.

   "He came home Thursday. I thought he was fine," Welsh said. "I guess he just wanted to come home to see me go to the prom. They weren't going to tell me how bad it was until after. But Friday I was rushed out of school."

   Welsh played in F-M's three subsequent sectional contests.

   "Against Utica Proctor they had a moment of silence -- that killed me," Welsh said after his two-goal performance vs. Baldwinsville. "Against West Genesee it was tough. I made eye contact with my mom (Cynthia) during the game and it just crushed me. But I was able to keep it together. It wasn't a good game for me.

   "Coaches, players and family have all been there. We've had our house full. It's been a good distraction to keep me from thinking about it for now," Welsh said. "He was a huge fan of the team, so I'm glad we could get this one for him."

   Walk-off heroics: Sophomore shortstop Kyra Martin homered with two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning to give top-seeded Deposit a 2-0 softball victory over defending NYSPHSAA champ Edmeston in the Section 4 Class D softball title game.

   Martin's blow drove in Megan Faulkner. Martin's first homer of the season was also the second of her career.

   "It wasn't even a good pitch," Edmeston pitcher Catherine Johnson told The Daily Star. "It went right across her shins. I don't know how she even hit it."

   Milestone win (again): Sophomore Izzy Milazzo pitched a four-hitter to help Elmira Notre Dame to a 2-1 win over Tioga for the Section 4 Class C softball championship.

and drove in a run limiting the fourth-seeded Tigers (17-5) to four hits and a single run in the fourth inning that came home    The Crusaders' second straight title-game triumph vs. Tioga gave coach Steve Weber the 400th career victory. Weber, who has a mark of 400-108, had picked up career win No. 300 in the 2011 sectional final vs. Tioga.

   "I completely forgot about that because obviously my mind was somewhere else," he told the Star-Gazette. "This is as nervous as I've been for a game in probably quite a while, just because I really wanted it for them."

   More softball: John Jay East Fishkill, ranked third in the state in Class AA, used clutch hitting and a strong pitching by Ally Muller to beat No. 1 North Rockland 6-2 for the Section 1 large-school championship -- its fourth in six seasons.

   Miller threw a three-hitter and was backed by a two-run double from Bridgette Rooney in the fifth inning.

   Hard-fought win: Sophomore Brad Betcher, a mid-season call-up from the junior varsity, hot a run-scoring single in

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the top of the 11th inning that lifted Wallkill to a 3-2 victory over Cornwall in the Section 9 Class A baseball championship game.

   Senior starting pitcher Anthony Pacifico allowed two runs on three hits over nine innings, striking out nine. Sophomore John Winters entered in the 10th inning after Pacifico had thrown 124 pitches. Winters allowed one hit but recorded six strikeouts.

   Wallkill, which started the season 1-5, had at least one runner in every inning except the 10th and stranded 15 runners.

   Track and field history: McKee/Staten Island Tech became the only Staten Island school to ever win a PSAL outdoor track title, squeaking by favored South Shore 59-55.

   "The announcer had said we were only up two points before the relays went off," MSIT coach Scott Crabbe told The Advance. "I knew we still had some points coming our way in the triple jump but I also knew South Shore was very strong in the 4x100 and 4x800 relays."

   The Seagulls' Khadim Ndoye came through with a leap of 45-10.75 to win the triple jump, while James Mirfield tacked on another point by placing sixth.

   The lead was 14 points until South Shore won the 400 relay in :41.28, but the school's 1,600 relay was disqualified on an extraordinarily rare false start.

   "A bunch of things had to go our way and it just played out that way," Crabbe said.