The 2016-17 New York high schools year in review, Page 10

[From Page 9]

    • Dale Hawksby, coach of the Northeastern Clinton boys soccer team for 26 seasons, retired after six Section 7 championships and 332 victories.

    • Aquinas lost two state-championship coaches in three months when boys basketball coach Mike Grosodonia left to join the staff at St. John Fisher College in Rochester and football coach Chris Battaglia, with four NYSPHSAA titles and a 145-59-2 career mark to his credit, stepped down.

   "When people tell you that you'll know, they are right," Battaglia said. "I figured that it was a good time. Aquinas has been great, but I'd rather watch my daughter, Codi, coach basketball (as an assistant at Webster Thomas) and take my son C.J. to work out (for lacrosse and basketball)."

    • Walton football coach Jim Hoover, 71, closed the book on a 41-year career that included two NYSPHSAA championships and a 318-85-1 record. The son of legendary Vestal football coach Dick Hoover will be replaced this fall by his son Adam, who coached at Oneonta for seven seasons.

    • Susan Wagner coach Al Paturzo, 72, announced his retirement after 33 seasons, six PSAL city championships and a 223-131-2 record. Part of the Paturzo legacy will be his early use of computer software in the 1980s to identify and exploit opponents' tendencies, now commonplace in the sport.

    • John Faller retired after two NYSPHSAA championships and eight Section 6 titles as the football coach at Sweet Home, where he was 217-84-1 in 30 seasons. He also stepped down from lacrosse after the spring season after close to 400 wins and six sectional championships.

    • Other football figures stepping down included Rob Hoss, who coached Sayville to a shining 130-29 mark and five Long Island Class III championships in 15 years; Vinny Mascia, a 104-game winner at East Meadow with a pair of Nassau Conference I titles; and Section 5 football coordinator Dick Cerone, who'd served 43 seasons in that role and had previously relinquished his responsibilities as the NYSPHSAA state chair.

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    • South Kortright AD Bob Van Valkenburgh is relinquishing his duties as the school's boys basketball coach after more than 500 wins in the sport since 1986 but will stay on in soccer and baseball, and Bill Mitaritonna stepped down from Half Hollow Hills boys basketball.

    • Chris Kenneally, 65, who went 396-122 in 18 seasons as the boys lacrosse coach at Fayetteville-Manlius, also retired. Kenneally spent 15 years as an assistant with Tom Hall, who established the lacrosse program in 1964.

    • Marlboro baseball coach Dave Onusko left to join the staff at Vassar College as an assistant. Onusko coached

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the Iron Dukes for 20 years, accumulating more than 275 wins, five Section 9 titles and a NYSPHSAA state championship.

    • Among baseball coaches retiring were Holy Trinity's Bob Malandro, who booked 425 wins and five CHSAA titles in 30 seasons; Fort Ann's Dane Clark who rode off with 281 wins after his third NYSPHSAA championship and seven Section 2 crowns; and Gary Crooks, who logged 35 seasons at Maine-Endwell, going 396-266 with 13 Section 4 and two NYSPHSAA championships.

    • Jeff Cuilty coached his matches for the Wallkill wrestling team. His ledger included 432 dual-meet wins in 37 seasons. Cuilty was also the architect of a wildcard system adopted in the 2007-08 season to fill out the brackets of the NYSPHSAA tournament with an average of four additional competitors per weight class.

Rules and regulations

    Pitchers for NYSPHSAA baseball teams at all levels were made subject to pitch counts for the first time in 2017 when the organization fell into line with National Federation rules in a January vote by the Executive Committee.

    • Changes will be coming to wrestling in 2017-18 thanks to decisions at the state and national levels. After several years of proposals and planning, the NYSPHSAA OK'd a dual-meet team tournament that will debut in Syracuse in January 2018 with large- and small-school divisions of 12 teams. Meanwhile, the National Federation gave members the option of moving away from traditional one-piece singlets to an alternate two-piece uniform consisting of compression shorts or shorts designed for wrestling and a form-fitted compression shirt.

    • The NYSPHSAA also gave approval to sending sectional team champions to compete in its annual girls golf championship tournament and adding a second division to the NYSPHSAA boys and girls bowling tournaments beginning in 2018 when the event is staged at the OnCenter in Syracuse in conjunction with the U.S. Bowling Congress Open Championship.

    • In decisions affecting high school athletes, the NCAA shut down contact between college lacrosse coaches and prospective recruits before Sept. 1 of a player's junior year but opened up a December early-signing period in football.

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