Sunday, March 12, 2017: Williamsville North knocks off top-ranked Mamaroneck

   Leading off today: Fresh off last weekend's overtime win against West Genesee, Williamsville North blanked top-ranked Mamaroneck 1-0 Saturday at HarborCenter in Buffalo to advance to the NYSPHSAA Division I championship game.

   Trevor Cavalier scored his first goal of the season late in the first period and goaltender Jake Zurat, feeling the effects of a cold, made it stand up by stopping all 13 shots he faced.

   "You just try to block out the sickness as best you can and once it came to game time, you just try to relax and play your game," Zurat told The Buffalo News. "I think our defense did a good job keeping them to the outside and blocking shots at key points and that made my job easier."

   Williamsville North's opponent in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association will be Pittsford, a 2-1 winner over Massena in the other semifinal.

   "If everything fell into place, we knew we had the hardest path to the final," Spartans coach Bob Rosen said. "We had no gimme games. ... Our league is such that you don't get many easy nights, which I think has helped us (in the postseason)."

   Forward Andy Bronstein scored what proved to be Pittsford's winning goal early in the second period.

   "We played well," Panthers coach Steve Thering told the Democrat and Chronicle. "It would have been nice to get that extra goal, but a win is a win at this point in the season and (Sunday's) the state championship."

   Division II semifinals: Top-ranked Pelham cruised to a 6-0 win over Brockport by building a two-goal advantage in the first period and then continuing to apply relentless pressure.

   "I was kind of surprised a little bit that we were as crisp as we were," Pelham coach Ed Witz told The Journal News. "There's always going to be some nerves, there's always going to be some jitters and it looks like they were benign to that. We came out and controlled the game."

2017 NYSPHSAA boys basketball brackets 2017 NYSPHSAA girls basketball brackets 2017 NYSPHSAA boys hockey brackets N.Y. indoor track championships: Boys | Girls 2017 N.Y. boys swim championships (PDF) 2017 N.Y. wrestling results (PDF)

   Will Case opened the scoring for Pelham 8:43 into the first, giving the Pelicans all the offense they would need en route to their 24th straight win since opening the season with a loss.

   Justin Ming made 19 saves for Pelham's ninth shutout of the season.

   In the other semi, Luke Collins scored three goals as St. Lawrence cruised past Beekmantown 6-0. The Larries took the lead for good with two Andrew Lantry goals less than a minute apart in the first period after Beekmantown took a major penalty for hitting from behind.

   Rico DiMatteo made 21 stops for the shutout.

   Not exactly a leisurely walk: Lauren Harris of Sachem East opened Day 2 of the New Balance Nationals by breaking her own national record in the mile race walk with a time of 6:53.44 at The Armory in New York City.

   At the same meet last year, she became the first girl ever to break seven minutes indoors or outdoors by winning in 6:57.36. Harris also broke the indoor 1,500-meter record this season.

   More track highlights: The Shoreham-Wading River girls quartet of Payton Capes-Davis, Amanda Dwyer, Maria Smith and Alexandra Hays won the four-mile relay in 20:33.12.

    • Daniel Claxton of Smithtown East was one of three athletes over the bat at 7-0.25 but had to settle for third in the boys high jump based on total misses.

    • Armand Duplantis, the record-seting teen from Lafayette, La., didn't even enter the competition until the rest of the field was out at 17-1 and went on to win the boys pole vault with an amazing 19-1 effort.

   More later: I'll regroup tonight and catch up on a few of the highlights from Saturday's basketball action around the state.