Leading off today: We're apparently headed for a pair of new No. 1 teams when the New York State Sportswriters Association buys basketball rankings are released Tuesday.
Coming off a victory over archrival Iona Prep on Friday in the completion of a suspended game, No. 23 Archbishop Stepinac took down No. 1 Long Island Lutheran 76-66 in Class AA action Saturday. In addition, red-hot South Bronx Prep scored a 69-63 triumph vs. top-ranked Fannie Lou Hamer in PSAL Class B action.
"Winning a game like we did (Friday) night was huge for us," Stepinac coach Pat Massaroni told nychoops.net. "I don't know if we could do what we wanted to do today if we had lost to Iona."
Freshman R.J. Davis scored eight of his 15 points in the fourth quarter for Stepinac on a day of balanced efforts. Junior Alan Griffin scored 13 points, Eduard Minaya added 12, and Payton Hudson and Jorden Means chipped in with 11 and 10, respectively.
Stepinac has already downed No. 1 LuHi, No. 16 Iona Prep and No. 18 Christ the King in the 2016-17 campaign.
"We've just got to keep on pushing and keep beating other great teams," Massaroni said. "LuHi was a great team and if we keep fighting and keep playing this way hopefully we can go far."
Seventh-ranked South Bronx Prep couldn't approach its gaudy average of 104.5 points a game, but the Fannie Lou Hamer defense that was surrendering just 44.5 points a game in a 16-0 start finally relented.
Tilquan Rucker (26 points overall) and Ali Sumareh (23) combined for all of South Bronx Prep's 16 first-quarter points, and a 10-0 run early in the second built a 10-point cushion. The lead was just three before Mohamed Camara's 3-pointer beat the third-quarter buzzer.
Charles Davis led Hamer with 29 points.
More boys basketball: West Genesee, which we believe hadn't been state ranked since 1994 before checking in at No. 22 last week, beat No. 9 Shenendehowa 77-58 in Syracuse.
The Wildcats made 12 3-point shots and got 46 points from senior guards Malik Zachery and Jack Bova. Luke Hicks scored a game-high 28 points for Shenendehowa.
Milestones, part 1: A third-quarter put-back bucket by Paige McCormick made her the fourth Section 10 girls basketball player to pass 2,000 career points during Heuvelton's 60-29 win vs. Chateaugay.
The senior forward scored 21 points and grabbed 11 rebounds as the Bulldogs ran their winning streak to 43 games. Paige's younger sister, Madison, added 20 points.
Milestones, part 2: Hamilton's 60-44 win over DeRuyter marked career win No. 500 for Tom Blackford in his 35th season on the boys high school basketball sidelines.
Blackford won 317 games at Hamilton over 20 seasons before leaving in 2002 for Fayetteville-Manlius, where he won another 180 games in 14 seasons. He returned to Hamilton this season.
His overall record is 500-260.
More girls basketball: No. 3 Bishop Ludden downed No. 23 Westhill for the second time this season, this time by a margin on 63-56 in Class B action.
Gaelic Knights point guard Danielle Rauch scored 27 points.
Track and field recap: North Rockland freshman Katelyn Tuohy ran a 4:48.29 mile during the Stanner Games at The Armory for the country's fastest scholastic time of the season, a state freshman record and a Section 1 record.
