Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2017: Vestal boys soccer beats Ithaca in OT again

   Leading off today: Junior Dan Mansfield fired a low, 20-yard shot inside the far post 1:24 into overtime to lift Vestal to a 1-0 boys soccer victory over Ithaca on Monday to earn its second straight Southern Tier Athletic Conference championship.

   The goal came off a feed from senior Parker McKnight and marked the second straight year the Golden Bears used an overtime goal to defeat the Little Red in the league title game.

   "This game is always crazy. Both teams are coming out to win," Mansfield said. "You love these games, these game are the ones you live to play for."

   Vestal is ranked fourth in the state in Class A this week by the New York State Sportswriters Association. Ithaca is ranked 10th in Class AA.

   More boys soccer: Hayato Komatsu finished with two goals and two assists for Keio Academy in a 4-1 victory over Blind Brook, ranked fourth in Class B. Sogo Sakamaki had eight saves as Keio secured the league co-championship with the Panthers.

    • Scarsdale earned a 4-1 win over Yorktown, ranked 21st in Class AA.

   Girls soccer: Kylie Gronchowski scored the game-winning goal in the first overtime as Pearl River downed Nanuet 1-0. Katherine Carstensen made seven saves in the shutout.

   Nanuet was ranked eighth in Class A last week.

    • Jolie Creo scored as time expired, giving Rockville Centre South Side a 2-1 upset of Wantagh, ranked 20th in Class A.

   Streak intact: A victory in a Nassau Conference IV meet Monday at Bethpage State Park gave North Shore its 10th straight perfect season in girls cross country, running the Vikings' winning streak to 128.

   Freshman Sophie Rosencrans led the way for the Vikings, covering the 4K course in 16:23.29 to finish second overall. Valley Stream South's DeAnna Martin won in 16:07.32.

   North Shore's 201-0 and '11 teams went on to NYSPHSAA championships.

   Football: We've updated our Week 8 schedule page to include the upcoming weekend's sectional pairings.

   Following up: Other than writing about the newly approved oversight committee that will act as a second set of eyes on the classification of non-public and charter schools, I never had a chance to highlight other developments from Thursday's NYSPHSAA Executive Committee meeting in Troy.

   Most noteworthy was a change in the way school enrollment figures will be handled for the purpose of assigning teams to playoff classes. Rather than applying numbers finalized in the spring to the following fall's sports, the data will be used the next school year as the result of a 12-8 vote with two abstentions.

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   Calculations are currently based on enrollment figures from grades 9-11, the reason being that they will make up the majority of the pool of varsity athletes the following year. When the one-year delay takes effect, the calculation will consist of grades 9 and 10 plus the average of the two.

   That will inflate enrollment numbers slightly but should make no difference since all schools will be similarly affected.

    • In wrestling, leagues will have the option of eliminating the 99-pound class from meets, and the Executive Committee unanimously approved limiting teams to a pair of two-day, dual-meet tournaments per year. The latter will have the effect of lowering the number of total matches for a significant number of competitors, creating a more level playing field when it comes to determining wildcard berths for the state tournament.

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    • A proposal to allow teams to use video replay for appeals at sectional cheerleading champion- ships was defeated.

    • Softball was OK'd to ditch the international tie-breaking procedures for the entire state tournament instead of just the final fours the next two years and to institute a 12-run mercy rule for the tournament. A motion to play state tournament games to the full seven innings was defeated, meaning contests can be ended on account of weather.

    • Membership dues were frozen for the 2018-19 school year.

   More from the meeting: A year or two ago I mentioned in a blog that part of the value of bringing the Executive Committee together face-to-face is that perfectly good questions can arise out of the blue and potentially turn into discussions that become proposals and eventually even rules changes.

   That happened Thursday during the discussion over a handful of requests by the girls basketball committee to waive recently enacted NCAA rules changes involving topics such as the use of courtside monitors for replays and the size of the coaching box.

   There were already multiple waivers of NCAA rules on the NYSPHSAA books, raising a question -- I apologize for not remembering by whom -- about how many waivers will it take before the basketball committee decides to abandon NCAA rules in favor of the National Federation rules.

   It was a fair observation that will result in the girls basketball committee taking up the question in the coming months. One consideration sure to be raised is the effect on game officials who often times are working a college game one night and a high school contest the next. Would they be better off working exclusively from the NCAA rulebook, even with the growing number of waivers?

    • Don't look for anything to happen soon -- if ever -- but Section 8 raised a concern about shortages of officials, facilities and coaches perhaps prompting the move of volleyball from the fall to spring seasons, with the girls side of the sport more likely to be affected than the boys.

   As it is, some leagues still cling to girls volleyball as a winter sport. The possibility of it being played in all three seasons of the high school calendar does not seem especially good for the sport, and any proposal to move to spring would generate concerns about the potential effect on college recruitment.

    • Spectrum Sports (formerly Time Warner Cable) will stream girls soccer, boys soccer, field hockey, and girls volleyball finals (first time) finals this fall in addition to the state football semifinals and finals.

   It remains uncertain whether Spectrum will show any football on TV.

   Interestingly, the NYSPHSAA and Spectrum have agreed to make some championship programming available to News 12 Varsity subscribers, ending what had amounted to a postseason blackout for most downstate communities.