Leading off today: The first big state championship weekend of the 2024-25 school year is in the books, so here are some stream-of-consciousness notes and observations.
• Marcellus wasn't quite perfect in the just-concluded girls soccer season, finishing 22-0-2. but the Mustangs certainly finished strong. They won their eight Section 3 and NYSPHSAA Class B postseason games by a combined score of 47-0.
• Bethlehem was a convincing winner in the girls Class A race at Saturday's NYSPHSAA cross country meet at Queensbury High School, outdistancing runner-up Northport by a 20-75 margin. It marked the first time since 1999 that a team other than Saratoga Springs or Fayetteville-Manlius won the large-school division at the meet.
As usual, there were multiple other noteworthy tidbits to absorb from what is annual one of the best state meets in the country. For starters, Tri-Valley siblings Van Furman and Anna Furman won their respective Class D races.
Van Furman successfully defended his individual championship. In Class B, both William Tempest (Pittsford Sutherland) and Sophia McInnes (Bayport-Blue Point) were repeat winners. In the Class A girls race, Zariel Macchia of William Floyd added another crown to the one she earned in 2022.
Team-wise, East Aurora won the boys and girls races in Class C. The girls' 62-64 margin over Bronxville gave that squad its fifth straight state-meet win.
• Considering that they allowed only four goals all season -- the last one came on Oct. 2, we probably should have seen the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake NYSPHSAA Class B field hockey championship coming. The Spartans posted 17 shutouts in a 21-0 season.
• Cornwall punched its way into the state Class A football quarterfinals with a seemingly impossible rally to beat Minisink Valley in the Section 9 championship game. Trailing by 26-7 late in the fourth quarter on Friday, the Green Dragons pulled off a miracle rally for a 27-26 victory.
It began with a 20-yard TD pass from Quinn Pikarsky to Matt Cerone with 3:45 left to cut the margin to 26-14. Gabe Colsant recovered the ensuing onside kick to set up another Pikarsky-to-Cerone scoring pass, this time for 12 yards out with 2:00 to go.
Minisink Valley went three-and-out on its next possession but forced Cornwall to use its three timeouts. Following the punt, Cornwall drove 70 yards, capped by Jordan Bishop's 18-yard touchdown run for the lead and the win, advancing the Green Dragons (10-1) to a state quarterfinal vs. Vestal.
• I heard rumblings of discontent about this all season, but commentary/outcry regarding Garden City's absolutely dominant football winning streak will likely hit peak velocity midway through the 2025 season.
The Trojans throttled Rockville Centre South Side, 54-0, to advance to the Section 8 championship game in Conference III. It marks the school's 38th appearance overall and ninth in a row in Nassau County title games.
Garden City carried a 42-game winning streak into the current season after three straight Conference II titles. Enrollment changes pushed the team down to Conference III this fall, and the winning streak is now at 52, which -- assuming they close out their schedule with two more playoff wins -- will put the Trojans within striking distance of Maine-Endwell's state-record streak of 62.
Garden City potentially moves back to Conference II the next time Nassau County adjusts its enrollment-based alignments, but that won't silence the bigger gripe regarding the winning streak: The Long Island sections do not participate in the NYSPHSAA playoffs.
Record book: Longest football winning streaks
So, save for the Long Island Championships game at the end of the season, the Trojans' wins all come against Section 8 competition. When Maine-Endwell was rolling up its historic winning streak, the final three games each season came against the best that other NYSPHSAA sections had to offer.
• The Facebook post below caught my attention for two reasons a few days before sectional football finals. Firstly, Aquinas did in fact climb into a tie with LeRoy for the most Section 5 championships by virtue of routing Rush-Henrietta.
However, the more interesting aspect is how we should be dealing with crediting championships for combined teams. LeRoy and Caledonia-Mumford had long been among the small-school elites in the Finger Lakes/Genesee Valley region, and they had the best small-school rivalry in all of Section 5 football for decades.
Now, those schools field a combined football program, and LeRoy/Cal-Mum played for a sectional title in Class C over the weekend but came out on the short end against East Rochester/Gananda.
Had LeRoy/Cal-Mum won, how should it have been credited? would LeRoy and Cal-Mum each add another to their list of championships? Would the combined program start counting from scratch?
I'm not sure which way to go on that and would be interested in hearing thoughts about it since I'm in the early stages of building out a new website where the question will be relevant.
