Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018: General Brown players, parents want coach reinistated

   Leading off today: Parents, students and teachers packed the General Brown High School cafeteria Monday to tell the school board they were unhappy with the removal of Janelle Ferris as girls basketball coach on Nov. 17, The Daily Times reported.

   The board allowed for eight public comments to be made, all of which supported reinstating Ferris.

   No response was made by the board, which into executive session afterward.

   Senior captain Anna Bauter called Ferris' removal "easily the most heartbreaking thing I've experienced in my whole athletic career." She also expressed frustration that the team's captains were not consulted as district officials conducted an inquiry but younger players were questioned.

   The team opens its season Tuesday vs. Lowville with interim coaches Stacy Bauter and Matt Milkowich on the bench. Junior varsity coach Lindsay Hanson stepped down from her position after Ferris was removed.

   Milestone: Horseheads girls basketball coach Andy Scott reached 300 career wins Friday when the Blue Raiders defeated Holland Patent 44-35 in the opening round of the Anthony C. Drago Tournament at Oneonta.

   "We've been pretty fortunate at Horseheads to have a lot of hard-working kids and great families that have been supporting of the program," said Scott, who is in his 20th season. "The bottom line is you're not going to be very successful unless you have personnel to go out and do it."

   Horseheads has posted winning records in 18 of Scott's previous 19 seasons.

   An end to the futility: Dundee's 47-29 victory over Clyde-Savannah in girls basketball on Friday was the program's first win in the sport since the 2014-15 season. Megan Sutherland's 13 points led the way.

   The Scots did not put a team on the court in the 2015-16 season, then went 0-17 and 0-19 the past two year.

   "The girls showed a lot of heart, hustle and determination that led to a great defensive effort which was most evident when they allowed only one point in the second quarter," coach Michael Strait said.

   Back on the ice: Albany Academy has not dropped out of ice hockey in the elite New England Prep League, but the school is fielding a Section 2 squad for the first time since 1997.

   While the NEPL team remains separate and intact, former coach Dave Rider has returned to run the squad playing in the Capital District High School Hockey League.

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   "It is something that we've thought about the last couple of years," Rider said. "We've had a JV program that really wasn't doing what we were hoping it would do, which was develop players that could play ultimately on the prep school level."

   Players who either couldn't make the cut or didn't want to commit to the grind of the NEPL circuit, now have an alternative if they want to continue their career.

   "We had kids that enjoy the game and just want to continue playing," Rider said. "We also have some young kids that are skilled players that we want to try to give them an opportunity to develop so they can reach their goals of playing at the

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prep school level and possibly college."

   Under Rider, Academy was 335-113-14 in 18 years through 2009 with eight sectional titles and one state crown.

   Alumni news: I generally don't spend much time following the college exploits of former New York high school stars because I pretty much have my hands full keeping track of the current goings-on in the scholastic ranks.

   Nevertheless, a note about a relatively insig- nificant honor bestowed upon a recent Section 5 standout caught my attention last night.

   Siena College basketball guard Jalen Pickett became just the fourth player in the history of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference to be honored as both freshman and player of the week. Pickett posted totals of 41 points and 21 assists as Siena split a pair of games with Hofstra and Harvard.

   He is seventh in Division I with an average of 7.0 assists per game even though he's regarded as more of a three-position player than a pure point guard.

   The reason that the accolades for the former Aquinas star (he was sixth-team all-state in Class AA as a senior) caught my eye is the list of the previous players who'd pulled off the freshman/player of the week double in the MAAC. All went on the various levels of success in the subsequent years, a reminder that it's a long trip from freshman year to graduation.

   Darrell Barley, who was a star at Rochester East (he coaches there now) and then had a great career at Canisius, did it in 1994. Lionel Simmons, who played seven NBA seasons, did it for LaSalle in 1986. Schadrac Casimir, who's now at Florida Gulf Coast University, did it for Iona in 2014.