Friday, Dec. 22, 2017: Susquehanna Valley ends Seton Catholic winning streak

   Leading off today: Susquehanna Valley defeated Binghamton Seton Catholic 67-51 on Thursday, ending the Saints' 29-game winning streak.

   Trinasia Kennedy scored 17 points, Holly Manchester 15 with the help of three 3-pointers in the first quarter and Alexis Drake 14 for Susquehanna Valley, ranked second in the state in Class A by the New York State Sportswriters Association this week. Seton Catholic is ranked sixth in Class A.

   Susquehanna Valley plays Class A No. 7 Somers on Tuesday in the Westchester County Parks Slam Dunk Tournament.

   Susquehanna Valley's lead was 38-31 at halftime. Junior center Maeve Donnelly set up Drake for the first basket of the third quarter and scored the next field goal to make it 42-31. A transition bucket and free throw by Drake extended the lead to 45-33.

   Lawsuit filed: The family Joshua Mileto, the Sachem East football player who died in August during a training drill on school grounds, filed suit against the school district and a booster club on Wednesday.

   The wrongful-death lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Riverhead against the Sachem Central School District and the Sachem East Touchdown Club did not specify the amount of monetary damages sought, but Jay W. Dankner of Manhattan, the lawyer representing the family, said the Miletos are seeking $15 million.

   Mileto, a 16-year-old junior, was a participant in a summer football camp organized by the parent-run booster group and run by school staff, including Sachem East coaches. Mileto and four others were carrying a log above their heads and shoulders as part of the training exercise when he fell and was struck by the log.

   "His neck was crushed by this thing," Dankner told Newsday.

   Dankner said it was negligent to run a drill that in challenging even for Army Green Berets and Marines.

   "Who thought of such a stupid thing?" Dankner asked.

   Suffolk County police determined no criminal charges were warranted.

   ESPN goes in-depth: ESPN's "Outside The Lines" aired a segment on commotio cordis on Wednesday, featuring the stories of Louis Acompora and Jack Crowley.

   Acompora, a Northport goalie, died in March 2000 when he was struck in the chest by a ball during a freshman lacrosse game. Acompora, 14, suffered commotio cordis, a rare form of cardiac arrest considered reversible with the assistance of an automated external defibrillator, which typically was not available at sports contests at that time.

   His parents became active in raising awareness through the Louis Acompora Foundation, and then-Gov. George Pataki signed into law a bill in June 2002 requiring that a portable AED be placed in each high school. "Louis' Law" was the nation's first to require AEDs, which are now commonplace at schools, public buildings and sporting events in many states.

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   Crowley was 15 when a baseball hit him in the chest and stopped his heart. The Long Island teen survived thanks to a police officer who grabbed a defibrillator and shocked his heart back into rhythm.

   Their stories are back in the news now because a U.S. organization that oversees athletic equipment has proposed the first performance standard for protectors to reduce the risk from blows to the chest. The National Operating

Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment has created more than two dozen standards for everything from baseball batting helmets to soccer shin guards, and the chest protector may be next.

   To pass a standard, a company must meet a long list of requirements that show its product will prevent specific injuries. Manufacturers go through extensive testing by third-party experts to obtain certification to the NOCSAE standard.

   Good dad, bad dad: The topic was youth sports rather than the high school variety, but Democrat and Chronicle news columnist David Andreatta served up a terrific piece Friday on a subject all too familiar for the parents of travel-league athletes.

   Here's the lead to his column:

   "It happened again last week: I excused my sons from school to play hockey.

   "They're 9 and 11 years old and their teams had tournaments in Pittsburgh and Buffalo that inexplicably began, like all youth hockey tournaments nowadays, on a Friday morning.

   "Last month, it was suburbs of Cleveland and Toronto. Next month, it'll be Syracuse and back to Pittsburgh. All told, my sons will each miss four days of school to play hockey this year. That feels like too many.

   "I could have told their school they were ill. But the attendance office receptionist can spot a lying parent with screwed up priorities at the drop of a bookbag. I told her I felt guilty.

   'It's OK,' she assured me. 'You're not the only one. There are others.'

   "I know there are. There are hundreds of thousands of them. Millions, even."

   He goes on to write about "a monolithic youth sports juggernaut that has compelled countless otherwise intelligent parents of my generation to hop on a treadmill with no off switch at Keeping Up with the Joneses Gym. No one on the treadmill buys the myth. We shake our heads at the preposterousness of it.

   "Yet we've allowed youth sports to take over our lives. They've commandeered our weeknights, weekends, religious holidays and vacations. Now they're cutting into our children's education and our jobs. What's left? Our wallets? They were the first to go!"