Friday, April 20, 2018: Jones retires from Lake George after state title

   Leading off today: Lake George boys basketball coach Dave Jones is going out on a winning note.

   Jones, who guided the Warriors to NYSPHSAA championships in 2013, '15 and '18, has decided to step down with a record of 360-101 and six Section 2 titles over 28 seasons.

   "Looking back on it all, I'm lucky to have a wonderful wife who has given me her unconditional support," Jones told The Post-Star. "I'm lucky to have four kids who love sports as much as I do. And lucky to work in a school district with a great group of students, faculty and staff. I just have to say I've been very lucky."

   Jones broke the news to his players after the April 12 ceremony honoring this year's state Class C championship season. Longtime assistant coach Tim Kissane is also retiring.

   "I kind of started to realize in the fall that my priorities were starting to change," Jones said. "I had pretty much made my decision back in the fall, but I did not want it to be a factor going through the season so I kept that to myself. When the season was over, I knew it was time for me to retire."

   AD Kyle Manny said he hopes to name a new coach in a few months, if not sooner.

   Cambridge coach exits: Fourth-year Cambridge girls basketball coach Tony Bochette is leaving on the heels of a 25-2 season and a trip to the NYSPHSAA Class C semifinals.

   He'll likely be replaced by assistant coach Bob Phillips, the father of freshman standouts Sophie and Lilly Phillips.

   "It's been a well-thought-out plan the last couple of years," Bochette said. "Bob and Edith (Phillips) have done a great job building the program."

   Bochette is also an assistant coach for the Cambridge football team and for the Hoosic Valley softball team, which is coached by his wife, Blake. He plans to continue in those positions.

   "Coaching three sports a year for 17 years, it's crazy how fast things go," Bochette said. "It's nice knowing that I can leave the program in the right spot with the right people."

   Injured player out of hospital: A Seaford varsity lacrosse player returned home one day after he was taken by helicopter to a hospital as a precaution after a head injury, AD Michael Spreckels said Thursday.

   The player's name was not released; he was injured in a game against West Hempstead and transported to Cohen Children's Medical Center in New Hyde Park.

   Welch to St. Bona: Former Cheektowaga basketball star Dominick Welch returned to town Friday to announce he will play for St. Bonaventure next season.

   The 6-foot-5 wing, who signed his National Letter of Intent, has been spending this school year at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio.

   Welch finished a five-season Cheektowaga career with 2,376 points. As a senior, he averaged 30 points, 12 rebounds, three assists and three blocks per game to make first-team all-state in Class A. At SPIRE, he averaged 19 points, six rebounds and three steals.

   Our Expectation is that Dominick will be an integral part of our team immediately," Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt said in a school release. “He has a great shooting stroke, can score in a lot of ways and loves to play fast."

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   Following up: Central Square Superintendent Thomas Colabufo said the trespassers who brought heavy equipment into the high school stadium without permission to clear snow off the field last month damaged the turf in 50 places, causing $1,300 in damage.

   The damage caused the district to close down the field for

the spring season pending repairs. It's unclear whether those repairs will even be made because the facility is scheduled to be overhauled in a capital project that begins next month, but Colabufo is still pressing for restitution.

   On March 11, the locks on two gates to the stadium were picked and a four-wheeler and other heavy equipment were brought in to clear the snow from the turf, he said. Repairing the tears requires at least two dry-weather days.

   New York State Police are still investigating the incident.

   82-0 blowout in baseball: Last weekend's 82-0 baseball blowout in Massachusetts isn't what it might seem like on the surface, and how the game came to be scheduled in the first place is every bit as strange as the final score.

   Old Rochester Regional High, tucked away in the southeastern past of the state, routed Lawrence (Mass.) Notre Dame Cristo Rey for its first win of the season after scoring 12 runs in the first inning and 20 more in the second. Impossible as it may seem, it just got worse from there.

   "I'm sick to my stomach over this," winning coach Steve Carvalho said. "We really tried everything possible. We told the kids don't take extra bases, no sprinting -- we even had kids bunting and they couldn't make the routine plays. We had kids hitting balls 300 feet and jogging to first.

   "We even asked that they stop the game after four innings and they said no. Believe me, we exhausted all options in our power."

   Notre Dame Cristo Rey AD Georgie Rosario said he was OK with what transpired and how Carvalho and the Old Rochester players handled themselves.

   The game would never have happened if not for the fact that two schools in the state are similarly named..

   Seeking to fill holes in his team's schedule, Carvalho saw an 11-8 record and state tournament berth for Notre Dame Cristo Rey in last spring's standings. Unfortunately, that was a completely different school and Carvalho inadvertently scheduled the Lawrence school instead of the better program in Dorchester.

   Spring weather feature: Kevin Stevens at the Press & Sun-Bulletin wrote the story I would have written. In fact, he wrote the story that I was going to write early next week. I had an AD and his assistant all lined up to more or less walk me through the same subject matter in Stevens' very comprehensive feature.

   Writing in the context of this sprig's horrible weather and the scheduling problem it has created seemingly everywhere, Stevens sat down with Jeff Paske, the third-year AD at Johnson City, to get a look at the juggling of resources that takes place every time a game needs to be rescheduled.

   "We usually go through a bad stretch every year, and then you have to get in several games within a week or so, and then you're caught back up," Paske explained. "You usually have one week where you're going 4-5 games, and then stretching into that next week when you're playing 'X' number of games in so many days to get caught back up.

   "But this has been pretty bad."

   As one small example, a varsity baseball game against Corning originally scheduled for April 9 was pushed back to the 10th, then the 12th, the 17th and finally (hopefully) the 21st.

   Every change requires confirming field availability and rescheduling umpires/officials. It it's an away game, a call gets made to arrange for a bus.

   "People are saying it's probably one of the worst (years), and I'd have to agree right now," Paske said.