Saturday, Dec. 2, 2017: Girard scores 46 as Glens Falls opens with win

   Leading off today: Glens Falls junior Joe Girard III moved past eight players on the state's list of all-time boys basketball scorers Friday. Making all that much more fun was the fact that one of the players he passed was his father.

   Girard made seven 3-pointers and scored 46 points in an 89-49 victory over Broadalbin-Perth in the Foothills Council opener for both teams. That raised his career total to 2,203 points, leapfrogging over four former Section 2 stars including Joe Girard Jr., who scored 2,179 points in his career at St. Mary's of Glens Falls and Shenendehowa.

   "My dad brought it up -- I didn't understand how close I was," Girard said. "So I beat my dad today, but we were just trying to win the game. We wanted to score a lot of points and get down and dirty on defense, and we did both."

   Girard is now 40th on the all-time New York list with nearly two full seasons to go.

    • Wahaad Johnson poured in 52 points for Bedford Academy in a 72-50 win over Automotive in PSAL action.

   Milestone: St. Joe's boys basketball coach Mark Simon earned his 300th win in the Marauders' 65-41 win vs. I-Prep. Simon is in his 18th season.

   Senior forward Jack Capen led St. Joe's with 22 points.

   Dollars and cents: Following up on the controversial decision by Section 1 to move its basketball championships out of the Westchester County Center, The Journal News obtained financial data related to last year's tournament that shows the section making a modest profit only with the help of deep discounting by the county.

   According to the Westchester County Parks Department, Section 1 made $154,257 from ticket sales to 21,115 fans over seven days last winter. After backing out $91,277 for operating expenses, the county paid out $62,980 to the section. After paying its own expenses for game officials, staffing and items such as equipment and trophies, Section 1 showed a profit of approximately $20,000.

   County officials said they could have charged up to $187,881 for services if they asked for full price, but provided Section 1 with $96,604 in discounts. The county made an additional made $46,792 from parking.

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   "We know this is a scholastic event," said Peter Tartaglia, the deputy commissioner for the Westchester County Parks Department. "We're not trying to make money off of it."

   Section 1 has taken issue with the cost of police, but the county said it charged $23,428 when the cost could have been as high as $39,255.

   Last call: We got some helpful responses this week when we sought assistance on the weekly girls basketball rankings but here's one last call for volunteers as we rebuild our lineup across the 11 NYSPHSAA sections as well as New York City.

   Past helpers ready to re-enlist or newcomers with a background in the sport (especially those regularly covering basketball for media outlets) can email me at jmoriello@yahoo.com by Monday morning if you're interested in helping. It typically requires simply updating records and noting important scores for the section's top two to four teams in each class.

   No surprise: The top 25 teams in MaxPreps.com's boys preseason basketball rankings have an average of three new transfer students apiece, the website reported.

   Twenty-four of the 25 coaches cooperated in helping MaxPreps identify 75 first-year transfers. A staggering 44 of the transfers are playing at seven independent programs that play regional and national schedules and do not compete for state championships.

   Extra points: Rick Leach is stepping down after nine seasons as football coach at Bethlehem. The Eagles were 19-17 the past four seasons, making the Section 2 playoffs each time, and 33-29 overall for Leach.