Leading off today: New York's career scoring leader in girls basketball will be going into the NFHS National High School Hall of Fame as past of its Class of 2025.
Caryn Schoff-Kovatch, who scored 3,548 points for St. Johnsville from 1989-95, was one of the four athlete enshrinees revealed on Thursday by the NFHS. In all, 11 honorees will be inducted during a ceremony in Chicago on June 30.
Schoff-Kovatch joined the St. Johnsville varsity in seventh grade, and the team went 146-7 over six seasons, winning two NYSPHSAA championships as well as a pair of Federation titles. She shared the 1995 Miss New York Basketball Award with Chamique Holdsclaw.
She was inducted into the New York State Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2009 and the NYSPHSAA Hall of Fame in 2024.
Besides her stellar basketball career, Schoff-Kovatch earned three letters in softball and four in soccer, earning all-league honors in both sports.
Schoff-Kovatch just completed her second year as head girls basketball coach at Assumption High School in Louisville, Kentucky.
Official recovering after being stricken during game
Quick work is being credited with potentially saving a referee's life after he collapsed during the Section 8 Class A boys basketball final between Floral Park and West Hempstead at Farmingdale State College on Saturday afternoon.
Referee Joe Gaskin found himself struggling to catch his breath during the first quarter of the game, then collapsed to the court. Help immediately rushed in as three nurses and a doctor came to the court while Wantagh athletic director Jennifer Keane retrieved an AED.
"I could hear that he was struggling to breathe and started to turn blue," Keane told the New York Post. "The doctor was saying that he had a pulse, and then all of a sudden he said, 'No pulse.'"
The AED restored Gaskin's heartbeat, and oxygen was administered as he was transported to Plainview Hospital. According to Newsday, Gaskin, 64, was responsive as he was taken from the gym and even managed to send a picture to friends of him smiling that evening.
Hard not to root for this team
The win-or-go-home cruelty of the postseason is a form of stress all by itself, but the
Bishop Grimes girls basketball team has more than that on its collective mind every time the Cobras take the court this month.
That's because the Syracuse Roman Catholic Diocese recently announced that the school will be shut down in June and merged with Bishop Ludden. Thus, the Grimes girls are down to their last one to three games ever, starting with Saturday's NYSPHSAA Class B quarterfinal vs. Voorheesville.
Every game has become a potential "last," something that began with the Section 3 quarterfinal win over Clinton in the quarterfinals for the Cobras' last appearance on their home court.
A good run comes to an end in memorable fashion
With multiple classes in the sport across the state's 11 sections, each basketball season brings us stories of teams ending long stretches of futility by capturing championships.
Chief among them this year may have been Port Washington, which gave back all of a 20-point lead before fending off East Meadow for a 58-50 win in the Section 8 Class AAA final.
The triumph represented the first Nassau County crown for the Vikings since 1947, propelling them into the state quarterfinals against Half Hollow Hills East on Sunday.
A close second in that department would have to be Penfield, which routed Webster Thomas by a 71-44 margin in the Section 5 Class AA-1 final.
That was the Patriots' first championship since 1953 and first appearance in a final since 1980.
In order to advance to the NYSPHSAA tournament, however, Penfield needed to defeat Greece Athena, the section's Class AA-2 titlist, in a state qualifier on Tuesday. Unfortunately, that's where the fairy tale ended -- though not until the scoreboard clock ticked down to zeros in the third overtime.
Athena rallied from nine points down with under three minutes to play, tied the game on a Ne'Sean Fowlks 3-pointer at the regulation buzzer, and went on to a 75-72 victory.
Athena took its first lead midway through the second overtime. I'zick Reaves and Dominic LaMar finished with 19 points apiece and combined for 17 rebounds.
• One other lengthy streak that we noticed coming to end came in the form of Berne-Knox-Westerlo's 64-61 win over Duanesburg for its first Section 2 boys title in 46 seasons. It extended the Bulldogs' season record to 26-0 and advanced them to the state Class C quarterfinals vs. Moriah.
More basketball notes
The NYSSWA's Steve Grandin pointed out something that we possibly have never seen before from a New York boys basketball team. Panama, which plays Fillmore on Saturday in the state Class D quarterfinals at Rush-Henrietta, has four first-team all-state football stars in its lineup.
Class D football co-players of the year Tate Catanese and Bryce Hinsdale are Panama's No. 2 rebounder and scorer, respectively. Fellow Clymer/Sherman/Panama all-staters Carter Brink and Alex Barmore are the basketball team's top scorer and rebounder, respectively.
• Germantown finished the regular season with a 1-19 record but defeated third-seeded Fort Ann and No. 2 Hawthorne Valley to reach the Section 2 Class D championship game before falling to Loudonville Christian in the final, 54-36.
Coming attraction
The 2024 NYSPHSAA Class AA football finalists have
scheduled a regular-season game against each other in the upcoming season.
Albany CBA will play at Syracuse CBA on Sept. 12.
Last fall's title game concluded in dramatic fashion as Brayden Smith's Hail Mary pass found Darien Williams in the end zone as time expired for a 41-40 Syracuse CBA victory.
Industry news
The Cortland Standard, a family-owned newspaper in Central New York,
ceased publication on Thursday after 157 years in business and will file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection.
Seventeen employees lost their jobs. They turned in their keys and emptied their desks on Wednesday.
"I hoped this day would never come," Publisher and Editor Evan C. Geibel wrote in the final edition. "I'm so very grateful to my colleagues and the community for what they've done for me, my family and each other."
