Sunday, Dec. 9, 2018: PSAL star Welch scores 64 in 143-80 blowout

   Leading off today: Kareem Welch's torrid start to the season continued Sunday as the Thomas Jefferson senior guard went off for 64 points during a 143-80 victory over Paul Robeson in PSAL AA Division action.

   Welch rounded out his stat line with 11 rebounds and seven assists. He made eight 3-pointers on his way to the 64 points, which easily topped his season-opening efforts of 50 and 41 points.

   Jefferson led 77-28 at halftime and then poured in 45 points in the third quarter. Kevin Tabb contributed 21 points and Jaguan Carlos scored 18 points to go with 19 assists.

   Cross country: A week after finishing as runner-up at the Nike Cross Nationals, an Indiana runner won the boys championship at the Foot Locker National Finals on Saturday in San Diego.

   Senior Cole Hocker of Indianapolis Cathedral High became the first male since 2010 to win after competing in the NXN race. He covered five kilometers in 15:13.7.

   In the girls race, sophomore Sydney Masciarelli of Thompson (Conn.) Marianapolis Prep became the first female runner to win in her first year of high school cross country since 2005, finishing in 17:00.3. Masciarelli gave up running to play soccer as a freshman.

   New Yorkers Mary Hennelly and Sam Lawler finished 29th and 31st, respectively, in their races. Hennelly, a Suffern junior, finished in 18:31.8. Lawler, a Pittsford Mendon junior, was clocked in 16:18.7.

   Emotional victory: Greenport scored an 81-76 boys basketball victory over Central Islip on Saturday as Porters senior player Tyrus Smiley watched the broadcast from a hospital bed.

   Smiley, an all-league player last season, was wounded in a shooting late Thursday. Two men have since been arrested, The Suffolk Times reported.

   The team met Friday and decided to play the Saturday afternoon contest as scheduled. Coach Ev Corwin said there was no hesitation.

   "They would have had to answer to (Smiley) if they didn't play the game," Corwin said. "I'll tell you that right now."

   Greenport junior Ahkee Anderson, who said he didn't sleep at all Thursday night after hearing about the shooting, led all scorers with 33 points.

   The team visited Smiley's hospital room on Friday and FaceTimed with him Saturday morning. Corwin said Smiley assured everyone he was OK and urged the Porters to play hard.

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   Singlet snafu: The Paddock name is huge in the tiny community of Warsaw, where the first family of Section 5 wrestling accounted for well over 1,000 victories as well as seven NYSPHSAA Division II championships and 10 other podium finishes.

   The team wrestled tournament finals the past two seasons wearing singlets carrying the initials of Brad Paddock and the logo of the Team X club run by the patriarch and part-time coach. Team X accounted for 20 state champions and 30 other place finishers before Paddock's death in December 2015.

   Warsaw resident Lance Bush donated the tribute singlets with the approval of the school board and an OK from Section 5, The Daily News in Batavia reported. But in what Warsaw Superintendent Joe Englebert -- himself a former

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wrestler and coach -- called "a horrible mistake," Warsaw staff took Paddock's initials and the Team X logo off all the singlets, which infuriated many locals involved with the sport.

   "Our mistake as a school district was we didn't notify Lance (Bush) what we were doing," Englebert said. "They used the singlets for two years as they were and we felt uncomfortable as a public school to have a private organization's logo still on our singlets after two years -- look around Section 5, no other public district has a private organization representing them, and we felt uncomfortable having one."

   Englebert quickly reached out to the wrestlers to ask them to come up with another idea to memorialize Paddock. What that ends up being needs to be a home run because people in Warsaw are not happy.

   Not your typical roster: The Associated Press wrote last week about the football program at Clarksville, Tenn., which just completed its season with a roster including three players born female, including two who no longer identify with feminine pronouns.

   You can read the story here.

   More reading: I may be missing the target audience with my latest PressConnects.com column ... unless, of course, teens are familiar with 16 mm film, Betamax VCRs and a 1947 football game played at Red Wing Stadium.

   Actually, the column is about observations from a college football recruiting event held in Rochester last Monday.