Update (2:10 p.m.): Section 8 has now postponed all Saturday contests due to the impending storm. The Massapequa-Garden City football clash between unbeatens has been moved to 5 p.m. on Monday at Hofstra University.
Leading off today: All of Long Island and multiple downstate communities have been preparing since Wednesday for the likely arrival of a Nor'easter storm that could deliver heavy rain and strong wind gusts.
Multiple contests scheduled for the weekend were already moved up to Thursday or rescheduled for Monday and beyond.
Early Friday afternoon, Section 11 called off all its entire Saturday schedule.
"We are shutting down all athletic contests countywide," Executive Director Tom Combs announced. "We are following the advice of our superintendents, executive board of directors, and the emergency notifications from Suffolk County. It's clear that this can turn into a very dangerous situation.
As of early Friday, however, Newsday was reporting that the highly anticipated Section 8 football showdown between Garden City, which owns the nation's longest active winning streak, and Massapequa was
still on for Saturday night at Hofstra University.
"Football is an outdoor sport meant to be played in the bad weather," Massapequa coach Kevin Shippos said. "Obviously, if it's a dangerous situation, we don't want to be in it. But those are things that are out of our control. All we can do is prepare the best we can, and then we'll adapt to the conditions, whatever they are."
Massapequa's current 25-game winning streak is second in the state only to Garden City's epic run of 68 in a row. Garden City owns 10 straight Nassau Conference titles and five Long Island Championships. Massapequa became the first Nassau school to win three straight Long Island Class I titles last fall.
"If you can't get excited for this, you don't have a heartbeat," said Pat Pizzarelli, the executive director of Section 8. "I'm a football fan. When we voted to have crossover games, the concept was to bring programs together that were struggling and help them play more competitive games. Then I looked at the matchups of the upper echelon teams and thought ... this is even better than I expected."
Such mega-showdowns are a rarity for Long Island programs, which do not compete in the NYSPHSAA football playoffs and abided by rigid conference scheduling until Nassau County coaches opened the door to a divisional crossover game this fall.
FULL WEEK 4 FOOTBALL SCHEDULE
WEEK 4 SCHEDULE FOR RANKED TEAMS
Putting it in perspective, it's believed this weekend will mark the first time in about 35 years that a Long Island NYSPHSAA team normally locked into conference scheduling will play an upstate NYSPHSAA opponent. Widespread forfeits this fall opened the door for Tuckahoe of Section 1 to travel to Section 11 for a game vs. Kings Park.
The last upstate/downstate matchup that generated any notoriety was probably in 1990 when Bellport (Section 11) defeated Union-Endicott (Section 4).
Pal-Mac will sit out Week 4
Palmyra-Macedon has forfeited its Week 4 football game vs. Penn Yan/Dundee in the aftermath of its game-ending altercation during a loss last Friday at Clyde-Savannah, the Finger Lakes Daily News website reported.
Some noteworthy performances
• Though Livonia prevailed 3-2 in overtime,
Braelyn Isaman became the leading scorer in Keshequa girls soccer history Thursday with her 97th and 98th goals.
• Elijah Doell scored six goals and assisted two for Mynderse in a 9-3 boys soccer victory over Palmyra-Macedon.
• I didn't catch it over the weekend, but Skaneateles receiver Eric Saibra pulled down 17 receptions for 213 yards and three touchdowns in Week 3. The 17 catches tied him for sixth in state history for the most in a game.
Honors for coaching greats
Fairport High is naming its outdoor fields and other grounds the
Don Santini Athletic Complex this weekend in honor of the Section 5 coaching great. Santini, who died last year at the age of 85, graduated from Fairport in 1957 and coached LeRoy and the Red Raiders to 206 football victories. He retired in 1992.
Meanwhile, Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk is honoring Gary VanDerzee by naming the field where he coached varsity football for 41 years after him. VanDerzee, who has been the NYSPHSAA football chairman since 2014, led his teams to 261 victories.
R-C-S is also naming a campus road in honor of Ron Racey,
who guided the cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track programs to multiple championships over 22 years.
