Leading off today: There have been some moments memorable for the right reasons mixed in, but the past week in the world of New York scholastic sports had already been mostly bad even before news of a death reached us on Tuesday.
Binghamton reporter Kevin Stevens has died
Kevin Stevens, who reported Section 4 sports news for the Press & Sun-Bulletin from 1983 to 2024, died Feb. 2,
the paper reported on Tuesday. He was 62.
"Kevin stood among the newsroom greats he worked alongside with, including Dave Rossie and Charlie Jaworski," said Kevin Hogan, the Atlantic Group Editor for the USA Today Network. "His knowledge of the local sports scene and collection of sources was unparalleled. But it was his demand for accuracy and the need to always improve our work that made us all better journalists."
He was inducted into the Section 4 Hall of Fame in 2008 and the Greater Binghamton Sports Hall of Fame in 2022.
Added former colleague Rob Centorani: "He had a gift for writing that I hope people appreciated what they had while he was doing it because he did it really, really well."
Indeed, he did do it well. Kevin was a longtime New York State Sportswriters Association contributor. His assistance with weekly rankings and season-ending all-state nominations was greatly appreciated, but it was his coverage of Section 4 sports where he truly shined. He painted vivid images with few words in both game stories and features. It was the perfect blend of reporting and writing.
Fight ends Long Island basketball game
A Suffolk County boys basketball game on Feb. 5 ended after a
bench-clearing altercation between players, Newsday reported.
Bellport's game at West Babylon was stopped by officials with 3:06 remaining in the first quarter after players began pushing and shoving, Section 11 Executive Director Tom Combs told the paper. The incident escalated when players and spectators ran onto the court, he said.
Site security restored order, but the referees decided not to resume the game. There were no reported injuries or arrests.
"We watched the video of the incident and it shows a total lack of discipline and no respect for the game," Combs said. "A push turned into a fight, the benches cleared and spectators got involved. West Babylon security did a great job getting everything under control quickly."
The game goes into he books as a forfeit by both teams. All the players involved received two-game suspensions, ending the season for both teams. Bellport (10-10) would have made the playoffs with one more victory.
West Babylon finished 4-15.
Ossining fires boys basketball coach
Second-year Ossining boys basketball coach Tyler Gallery was
dismissed by the school district on Wednesday, LoHud.com reported.
Athletic director Kimberly Saxton and Superintendent Mary Fox-Alter did not respond to requests for comment but Gallery said he was the subject of repeated efforts by the parent of a varsity player to discredit him.
"(The parent) kind of let it go over the summer and started back up the first game of the season,” Gallery said. "She took my whole team after the game, brings them to the athletic director and says, 'Go ahead, tell them that you want coach Gallery gone.' The kids proceeded to turn and look at her and say, 'I don't know what you're talking about.'
"The athletic director made her stop talking to the kids. She came back into the hallway, called me a fat little man. A police officer was nearby and heard it."
The school benched Gallery for a showcase game in Springfield, Mass., last month pending investigation of a complaint filed under the Dignity for All Students Act. He said that stemmed from his decision to run the players as punishment for a vape pen incident on the way back from a team outing to West Point to watch a college game.
"One of our players decided to smoke a weed pen," Gallery said. "The kids did not say who did it and I reprimanded them as a team. ... I alerted my athletic director that night."
Gallery said the investigation cleared him but the parent resumed her attacks. He subsequently penned a social media post that the parent cited in a complaint to administrators.
"The lady took a picture of it," he said, "even though it had nothing to do with her directly, and sent it to the school, claiming I was harassing her. ... The school took her side and removed me.
Assistant coach Jermain Smith is running the team, which is 3-14, for the remainder of the season.
Warsaw school board meeting sheds little light regarding incident
Parents and former students showed up at Tuesday's Warsaw school board meeting to express their concerns about an incident apparently involving players that led to a pair of boys basketball games being postponed last week.
WKBW-TV reported that those looking to speak were unable to do so because the deadline to sign up was last Thursday.
The district's statement last week said administrators recently became aware of an incident involving middle and high school students and requested outside counsel to investigate.
Deanna Johnson Myers, a 2022 graduate of the district, told the TV station she knows one of the students who was allegedly victimized.
"It was minimized. It was called hazing, and that's not what hazing is," she said. "It was sexual assault, period, point blank, and it needs to be addressed as that."
Courtroom updates
• A former Valley Stream Central assistant lacrosse coach, charged last year with blackmailing numerous children into sending him sexually explicit images, entered a guilty plea last week to sexual exploitation of children, which could lead to a sentence of up to 24 years in prison.
Joseph Robert Garofalo, 21, appeared in federal court in Central Islip to enter his plea. Sentencing was scheduled for Sept. 2, Newsday reported.
FBI documents accused Garofalo of using a social media account to "sextort" a 13-year-old boy, threatening to share naked images of the boy unless he provided more naked pictures of himself or explicit pictures of his friends.
Federal Magistrate Judge James M. Wicks said investigators had identified at least 30 of Garofalo's victims, most of them Long Island boys.
• John Anfossi, 54, a Long Beach middle school wrestling coach, was arrested, accused of forcefully taking a female wrestler to the mat and then pinning the juvenile beneath him "in a sexually inappropriate manner."
Anfossi was arraigned in Nassau County District Court, charged with acting in a manner injurious to a child under age 17 -- a class A misdemeanor, Newsday reported.
Two more over 2K
We're up to at least five New York basketball standouts to have reached 2,000 career points after two more hit the milestone last week.
Mila Bissett of Lancaster St. Mary's reached the mark on Feb. 5 during a 78-28 victory over Sacred Heart Academy.
Dobbs Ferry guard
Anthony Ficarrotta became the Section 1 career scoring leader, eclipsing the 2,055 points by Peekskill's Todd Scott in 1983, just a few days after surpassing the 2K mark.
Ficarrotta has been averaging 38 points a game in his senior season.
Going back to Bissett, she may have a shot to break the state record for girls that has stood since 1995 when Caryn Schoff graduated from St. Johnsville with 3,548 points.
On the plus side for Bissett, who began her career at Williamsville North, she is only late in her sophomore year and has logged over 1,100 points in two seasons at St. Mary's. The problem may end up being her school's schedule. The Lancers play an aggressive regional and national schedule in the first half of the season before their Monsignor Martin Association slate of games, and the higher level of competition inevitably will cut into her scoring opportunities.
Extra points
•
Payton Whipple made a school-record 11 3-pointers and scored 33 points for Mohonasen in a 75-37 win over Lansingburgh earlier this month.
• Hunter Hutteman of Hilton scored a goal in a 6-3 hockey win over McQuaid, bringing him to 100 career points.
