Saturday, Oct. 13, 2018: Spencerport girls break mark for unbeaten streaks

   Leading off today: A 4-0 victory over Rush-Henrietta on Friday extended Spencerport's unbeaten streak in girls soccer to 60 games, breaking the presumed New York State Public High School Athletic Association record in he sport.

   Erin Coykendall scored twice for Spencerport, and Leah Wengender and Maddie Tortora also connected. Cat Wall posted the shutout in goal.

   An outright state champion in 2016 and NYSPHSAA Class A co-champion a year ago, the Rangers improved to 14-0-1 this season heading into the Section 5 tournament. Syracuse-area power Westhill went 59 games without a loss from 1995-97 in the course of two consecutive state titles and then a near-miss.

   Brighton pulls upset: Section 5 Class A contender Brighton went on the road to Section 6 and pulled off a 2-0 boys soccer upset of Clarence, ranked second in the state in Class AA by the New York State Sportswriters Association.

   Gabriel Barraclough-Tan scored in the 25th minute and Sam O'Connor added an insurance goal in the 55th minute.

   Barons goalie Christian Burkhart recorded the shutout.

    • Bath, ranked No, 1 in Class B, was extended to overtime before defeating Class D No. 15 Mount Morris 3-2 in overtime. Thomas Binkowski finished with a goal and an assist for the Rams (16-0), who went ahead for good on Nick Strong's goal with a minute to go in the first overtime.

   A kind gesture: Reacting to news of an ugly incident earlier in the week, the Columbia High girls soccer team shared flowers with Schenectady players when they met for their game Thursday.

   On Tuesday, Schenectady players said they were subjected to racial slurs from some spectators during a loss at Niskayuna.

   Columbia's athletics department posted about the outreach on its Facebook page, writing: "If you want to feel good about our future ... come hang out with some of our athletes. After Schenectady soccer had an unfortunate incident from another team, our own girls soccer team came up with an idea to bring the Schenectady girls soccer team flowers. They gave them the flowers and a few hugs when they arrived to play them today. ... This world is hard enough, there is no need for hate. Hope it brought a smile to those girls faces."

ADVERTISEMENT

   Over the century mark: The fabled Massillon (Ohio) Washington football team did something Friday that no previous Massillon team had done -- break the 100-point barrier.

   The Tigers defeated Aston (Pa.) Sun Valley 101-6 on the strength of a 56-point second quarter despite running only 12 plays in the quarter. Five touchdowns came in a 5:16 span and the leads were 73-6 at the half and 94-6 after three quarters.

   Massillon went over the 100 mark on a 77-yard run by Raekwon Venson with 1:56 remaining.

   "Our kids work hard and they deserve to play," Massillon coach Nate Moore said after the team improved to 8-0. "We subbed early and often. We just kept scoring. I don't know. I don't even know what to say."

   Massillon ran a total of 32 offensive plays in the game, picking up a whopping 582 yards. but the Tigers had a total

RoadToSyracuse.com football site

of six returns for scores on kickoff, punt or interception returns.

   Said Sun Valley coach Greg Bernhard: "They are top-notch, the highest level of high-school football program, and we're not. We lose our best three skill players in the first (half). We've got 37 kids in uniform. We're in a tough spot. We basically had to hang on. What are you going to do?"

   Sun Valley fell to 3-5.

   Scoring disparity: The Daily Gazette pointed out ahead of Week seven that the average margin of victory this season in Section 2 football games between teams from the same class has been a lopsided 27.2 points.

   It's confirmation that three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust football is largely a thing of the past. Fifteen-play scoring drives consisting almost exclusively of running plays that chew up the clock have been replaced by six- or eight-play possessions revolving around passing games designed to get the fastest and most talented players into open space.

   "Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. That's the truth," Schalmont coach Joe Whipple said. "That's especially true with the spread (offenses) if you have three or four athletes that are (elite) and their coaches do a good job with them. ... They see mismatches and they take advantage of them. If there are one or two of those mismatches in a game, that could be 20 quick points."

   Another factor: Defenses face steep learning curves from week to week. They can face a spread offense, a wing-T attack and power-I formations in consecutive weeks. At best they'll have just three practices some weeks to make their adjustments.

   More reading: With the country having fallen into what would eventually be labeled The Great Recession, the New York State Public High School Athletic Association made a move in 2009 to cut the maximum number of games that could be played in the regular season.

   Basketball got its 19th and 20th games back three years ago, and now it appears possible that other sports could soon get some or all of their games restored thanks to support from an organization representing most of the state's school district superintendents.

   I wrote about it in more depth in my weekly column for PressConnects.com.