Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017: Portville ends Eden's championship run in volleyball

   Leading off today: The most successful championship run in NYSPHSAA girls volleyball history is over. Eight-time defending champion Eden will not be defending its state crown this season.

   Class C-2 champion Portville swept C-1 winner Eden 25-21, 25-18, 25-21 on Monday in the Section 6 state qualifier at Daemen College. Eden had won New York State Public High School Athletic Association crowns in 10 of the past 11 seasons and had appeared in 18 consecutive state tournaments.

   "It's something my kids have wanted so bad, and they came in with so much energy and so pumped up and so ready for it," coach Kelly Unverdorben said. "We knew that we had to bring a lot of emotion to get through a match like this. You have to (against) champions for forever."

   Avenging last season's four-set loss to Eden keeps alive Portville's hopes for a third state title of its own in the past four years after previously triumphing in Class D.

   "We wanted this rematch, and we just wanted to show them what we could do and I think we really pulled it off tonight," hitter Beth Miller said.

   More Monday action: Mason Benz scored in the fifth round of penalty kicks as St. Joe's beat Canisius 2-1 in the Monsignor Martin boys soccer final, advancing the Marauders to the state CHSAA tournament at St. John's University this weekend.

   Goalkeeper Christopher Collins stopped four of the five shots in the shootout. "I asked him to get one (save). Get one and we should be able to take care of our business," St. Joe's coach Mike Thoin said.

   The teams had played to a tie in both of their regular-season meetings.

    • On Sunday, Rye Country Day captured the New York State Association of Independent Schools field hockey championship over Hackley by a 3-2 margin after a wild finish.

   Olivia Friedberg's second goal of the game tied the score just 11 seconds after Hackley's Elli Arnold scored to put the Hornets on the verge of a championship. Friedberg then set up her sophomore twin sister Elizabeth for the deciding goal 6:09 into overtime.

   On Monday, RCD improved to 16-3 with a 2-1 win over King in the Fairchester Athletic Association Tournament quarterfinals on goals by Katherine Holtby and Marisa Kim. They'll play Greenwich (Conn.) Sacred Heart on Wednesday in the semis.

   Venue changes: The NYSPHSAA has tweaked this weekend's field hockey schedule to enforce its neutral site policy in light of Maine-Endwell reaching the Class A semifinals.

   In team sports, schools advancing to the semifinals or finals cannot play on their home field if multiple sites have been scheduled for the tournament. As a result, Saturday's semifinals -- Maine-Endwell vs. Webster Thomas and Baldwinsville vs. Ward Melville -- were moved to Vestal.

   However, Maine-Endwell could still play on its home field on Sunday since M-E was the only venue scheduled for use for the championship tripleheader.

    • After scrambling over the weekend when Shenendehowa's field became unavailable, Section 2 lined up Columbia High School to host Friday's NYSPHSAA Class AA football quarterfinal between Troy and New Rochelle.

   The Flying Horses, the reigning state champions, beat New Rochelle 20-14 in the semifinals last fall at Kingston's Dietz Stadium. Both teams enter the rematch with 10-0 records.

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   Whoops: "We now un-join this game already in progress ..."

   That could have been the sign-off Saturday when a Buffalo TV station had to abruptly shut down it's live stream of Cheektowaga's 28-27 victory over Maryvale in the Section 6 Class B football final Saturday from New Era Field.

   The reason? It turned out WGRZ-TV did not have rights to the game. The station had been doing games for several years and had streamed other contests throughout the

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weekend before Spectrum Cable informed Section 6 Executive Director Timm Slade that it owned exclusive rights.

   Slade said he thought the NBC affiliate's streaming rights for the championships were grandfathered into the Spectrum agreement. "The issue in the past is Spectrum never live streamed; they only carried the games live or on tape delay," Slade told The Buffalo News.

   Opinion: I've seen some bashing of Spectrum on social media the past two days in the aftermath of the weekend glitch. To be honest, the criticism is not justified. As part of its strategy to distinguish itself from competitors such as satellite providers, Spectrum negotiated the rights to those games. If anyone has a problem with that, they can just outbid them when the next contract comes up for negotiations.

   Strange CNY behavior: A man charged in connection with a landlord-tenant dispute in Cayuga County will face new charges after police said they seized numerous handguns he possessed illegally.

   Eric Simmons, 50, of Owasco faces six counts of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a felony, after police acted on a court-ordered seizure of weapons possessed by him, the Cayuga County sheriff's department said.

   Syracuse.com reported Simmons was charged earlier with fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, second-degree menacing, second-degree obstructing government administration and endangering the welfare of a child after a Sunday incident at the Owasco home of Jeffrey Richardson, a Syracuse Nottingham girls JV basketball coach.

   Richardson said he and his family were victims of racism after a man and his son drove a truck into his driveway, placed a "Get Out" sign on the lawn, pointed a gun at his door and then fired a shot down the road.

   Police said Simmons appears to be a friend of Richardson's landlord, adding that Richardson and the landlord had a recent dispute over rent.

   Simmons was arraigned and sent to the Cayuga County jail in lieu of $10,000 cash bail or $20,000 bond.

   A first: Vermont became the first state in the United States to recognize "Ultimate," the family picnic game played with a Frisbee flying disc, as a high school varsity sport when the Vermont Principals Association unanimously approved a proposal last week. Varsity play will begin in the spring of 2019.

   Ultimate is played 7-on-7 on a field slightly smaller than a football field. Players pass the disc down the field until a teammate catches it in the end zone. If the disc is dropped, it is turned over to the other team.

   Ultimate was sanctioned as an exhibition sport for the last three years and has grown tremendously in Vermont high schools according to Bob Johnson, associate executive director for the VPA. Johnson expects 13 or 14 school teams for boys in 2019 and seven to 10 for girls. There will also be a state championship tournament.