Friday, Aug. 30, 2019: Corcoran appoints Murphy to coach girls basketball

   Leading off today: Former Corcoran star Camille Murphy has been appointed to succeed Jim Marsh as the girls basketball coach at Syracuse Corcoran.

   "We're absolutely excited to have her," Corcoran AD Jim Palumbo said Friday. "It's great for the kids. It gets that deep basketball connection with the girls."

   Marsh retired after 35 seasons with two NYSPHSAA championships and more than 500 victories. The basketball court at Corcoran is named after him.

   Murphy scored 1,512 career points and led Corcoran to a state crown in 1998 before moving on to the University of Georgia and the WNBA. She coached at Skaneateles for two seasons beginning in 2016, going 20-21 before resigning over philosophical differences with administrators.

   Eldred out of the mix: Eldred has canceled its 2019 football season due to a lack of participation.

   "We just didn't have enough players," AD J.J. Gass told Hudson Valley Sports Report. "It's upsetting. I feel bad for the kids that showed up, especially the two, three seniors we had."

   New York State Public High School Athletic Association rules require 12 players be available for games. Gass said the Yellowjackets had fewer than 10.

   Eldred has struggled with participation recently. In 2016, the Yellowjackets forfeited to Millbrook on the Blazers' homecoming weekend. In 2017, the forfeited the Section 9 Class D championship to Millbrook when it couldn't dress the required 16 players for the title game.

   A blazing start: Cato-Meridian seventh-grader Amber Clarke is off the a prolific start to the girls soccer season.

   Clarke began her career with three goals Wednesday in a loss to C.G. Finney. She returned a day later to bag a school-record six goals in an 8-5 victory over Hannibal.

   Clarke's total of nine goals is halfway to the program season mark of 18.

   "She's the real deal -- fast, skilled and an outstanding finisher," coach Brad Andrews said. "She's going to be something special."

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   Venue change: Kudos to McQuaid coach Bob Bates and the school's administration for giving up the home field in Section 5's best rivalry. Officials from McQuaid and Aquinas were on hand Friday for an announcement that their Sept. 7 football opener will be moved to Frontier Field in downtown Rochester.

   It will be the first football game in the history of the 23-year-old stadium, made possible by the fact that potentially tearing up the natural grass is irrelevant since the field is being resodded in mid-September.

   Players were surprised when the section-wide schedule was announced this spring and the rivalry showdown was set for Week 1. The stadium venue further pumps up the excitement.

   "Notre Dame was playing Boston College at Fenway Park a few years back," said Dan Mason, general manager of the International League's Rochester Red Wings and a McQuaid alum. "As I was sitting there in my seats on the first base line watching the game and looking around the ballpark seeing how Fenway transformed itself from the home of the Fighting Irish -- and Fenway is such an amazing ballpark -- it just struck me: 'This is really so cool, this is something I'd really like to try to do at Frontier Field.' I think our fans would love it, I think obviously the participants would love it."

   Keep an eye on this: Florida high school sprints sensation Briana Williams, a double World Under-20 Championships

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gold medalist, has tested positive for a banned diuretic.

   Williams, a 17-year-old coached by former world champion Ato Boldon, re- portedly tested positive for hydrochlorothiazide at the Jamaican Champion- ships in June, where she clocked a world under-18 best of :10.94 to finish third in the 100 meters to put her well in the running for a place on the team for Doha.

   Her handlers say the substance was contained -- but not listed as an active ingredient -- in an over-the-counter cold and flu medication that was given to her by a relative and that she had de- clared usage on her dop- ing control form. Diuretics are known to work to mask the presence of other substances.

   She's now in a race to clear her name in time for the IAAF World Track and Field Championships in Doha, Qatar, next month.

   The incident serves as a reminder that elite high school athletes in some sports -- notably track and swimming -- face a level of scrutiny that many of their peers don't have to worry about before reaching the Division I or professional ranks.

   Coming up: It feels as though I've been everywhere in the last month, beginning with the NYSPHSAA Central Committee meeting in Verona and a book signing by "Amazing Racers" author Marc Bloom in DeWitt. In the past few days I've been to Section 5's mandatory ADs meeting, a local fencing camp to recall old times with internationally respected foil coach Buckie Leach and in Victor last night to hear sports psychologist Dr. Jarrod Spencer.

   The result is a backlog of material that I need to get around to writing and posting. I just haven't figured out the format -- Blogs? Columns for newspaper websites? Podcasts? -- and timeline.

   I hope to have news to share on that front shortly.

    • Speaking of the mandatory ADs meeting, athletic directors in other sections can expect a heavy dose of discussion about transfer rules and eligibility issues for exchange students when the NYSPHSAA's Robert Zayas and Todd Nelson tour the rest of the state over the next month.

   If the emphasis on exchange students surprises you, it really shouldn't. New York is the third-most popular U.S. destination for international students.