Sunday, Oct. 7, 2018: Williamsville East rolling ahead of key league game

   Leading off today: Forward Ben Woolingham scored four goals, including three in the first 19 minutes, to highlight Williamsville East's 6-0 win over Williamsville South in boys soccer Saturday.

   Woolingham was coming off a hat trick amassed in the first 15 minutes of a game nine days earlier and has 20 goals for the Flames, ranked 15th in the state in Class A by the New York State Sportswriters Association.

   Williamsville East's win and Hamburg's 4-0 victory vs. Sweet Home sets up a showdown between the two for the ECIC II championship Wednesday. Hamburg, which won their first meeting 1-0 leads the division with an 11-0 record. Williamsville East is 10-1 after six straight shutout wins in the aftermath of the loss to Hamburg.

   Distance demons: Katelyn Tuohy of North Rockland and Kelsey Chmiel of Saratoga Springs repped New York in fine fashion in out-of-state cross country action.

   Tuohy broke one of the more coveted course records in the Northeast that she didn't already possess by knocking more than a minute off the existing mark for the New Balance Shore Coaches Invitational in Homdel, N.J.

   Her time of 16:21 for five kilometers crushed the 17:27.5 mark by Megan Venables of New Jersey in 2011.

   As noted by Milesplit, Tuohy would have finished 17th in the boys' meet merge.

   Running in the Great American Cross Country Festival in North Carolina, Chmiel ran to victory by nearly 45 seconds in 16:43.8 -- improving by about seven seconds from her win last year, down by about seven seconds and moving to third all-time on the course, where all-time Cornwall great Aisling Cuffe once won in 16:40.9.

   Rauber romps: Sophomore Brooke Rauber of the host school breezed to the girls small schools title at the Tully Invitational, clocking 17:56.7 for 5,000 meters. Her course record performance was 2:49.6 ahead of runner-up Alexa Doe of South Jefferson.

   More cross country: Matthew Payamps of St. Anthony's mastered the Sunken Meadow State Park course to the tune of a 16:30.89 clocking to win the top varsity race at his school's invitational. Colin Waters or Arlington, a likely contender for a NYSPHSAA championship on the same course next month, was second in 16:34.36.

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   East Aurora (110) won a tight race with Arlington (123) for team honors.

   On the girls side, Suffern junior Mary Hennelly cruised home in 18:54.35 for individual honors while Arlington (88) fought off Sacred Heart Academy (89) and East Aurora (93) for the team title.

    • Ryan Guerci of Nanuet threw down a crisp 15:20.0 in the Brewster Bear Invitational.

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   Boys volleyball: I neglected to grab scores when I had the chance but Fairport won the huge invitational at Penfield to cap a week in which the Red Raiders also won a league match against Penfield, the defending NYSPHSAA Division I championship.

   Dropping in to watch some pool play reminded me that I don't pay nearly enough attention to the sport, which is played at a very high level when top teams get together.

    Penfield split its varsity into two squads -- and both emerged from pool play to make it to the championship bracket quarterfinals.

   Court action (and we don't mean basketball court): The father of coveted forward Brian Bowen Jr. testified Thursday in federal court that a current DePaul University assistant basketball coach paid him to have his son attend La Lumiere School, the La Porte, Ind., program that is a national scholastic powerhouse.

   Brian Bowen Sr. told a jury current DePaul assistant Shane Heirman paid him $2,000 per month for Bowen Jr. to play at La Lumiere. His testimony took place during the trial of aspiring agent Christian Dawkins and two other defendants accused of giving illegal inducements to top recruits.

   Bowen Jr. transferred to La Lumiere from a Michigan school in 2015. Heirman was hired at DePaul in May 2017 after three seasons at La Lumiere. Bowen committed to Louisville last year but never played in college. He currently plays in Australia's National Basketball League.

   Following up: The GoFundMe campaign on behalf of Nancy Haggerty was within $800 of the original $30,000 goal as of 8 p.m. Sunday.

   The home of the sports reporter from The Journal News was heavily damaged by a fire on Tuesday.