Leading off today: No matter how you look at it, there's little or no defense for a decision made by the folks at Oceanside High over the weekend in the midst of the Nor'easter that disrupted downstate sports.
With Section 8 among several entities that called off Saturday and Sunday scholastic sports due to the heavy rain and wind gusts that traveled up the coast, many school administrators sprang into action to get their football games rescheduled for Monday.
That was not the case at Oceanside, however. Instead, the team is taking a forfeit and is moving on to the next game on the schedule, Friday night vs. Syosset, Newsday reported.
Oceanside, ranked 18th in Class AA by the New York State Sportswriters Association, was supposed to take on H. Frank Carey, No. 20 in Class A, on Saturday. It was one of the divisional crossovers that Nassau County coaches agreed to try this fall in order to inject additional interest into the sport. The big clash, of course, is the contest between Garden City and Massapequa, but Oceanside vs. Carey was going to be a compelling watch, too.
Unfortunately, the latter won't be happening.
According to the report, Oceanside wanted the Syosset game pushed back from Friday to Saturday to build in an extra day of preparation, but the schools could not come to an agreement. With that being the case, Oceanside called off the game vs. Carey.
"Having a game on Monday and again on Friday was not feasible for us," Oceanside coach Rob Blount told the paper. "My job is to get my team prepared and my responsibility is the safety of my players."
Consequently, both Oceanside and Carey will only play a seven-game regular season.
"Any forfeit is not good and not fair to the players," said Section 8 Executive Director Pat Pizzarelli. "Both teams lose a game during the regular season. We had a sectional rule change over the summer that gives the home team the authority to dictate the day and time of a game.
"Oceanside could have moved the game next weekend and set the time for Saturday; that's by rule and they chose not to do it."
The bottom line
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it's a duck.
And this feels an awful lot like Oceanside ducked Carey.
While every other affected program on Long Island was trying to figure out what needed to be done to get back on the field on Monday, it sure seems like Oceanside went looking for a way not to play a quality opponent.
And let's be clear: At best, player safety was a very marginal consideration. The rules require four nights of rest between football games, which means a team that plays on Monday could still play a Friday game. Even then, the idea on the table was to move next weekend's game to Saturday -- and that would have been do-able once the dust (or in this case the raindrops) settled this weekend.
All in all, just a bad look for Oceanside. If anyone there wants to offer a rebuttal, I'll be happy to give equal time here.
Cross country kicks into high gear
Cross country season started at the same time as most fall sports, but now the season is
really here as the massive McQuaid Invitational and the Manhattan Invitational take center stage the next two weekends.
This past weekend, however, lit the fuse as the Queensbury Invitational gave teams their annual look at the course that will host the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships.
Some teams don't prioritize the pre-states meet because it doesn't fit into their training/competitive routine, and others don't need to be there because they run that course often enough to know the literal twists and turns.
Nevertheless, there's always plenty of top-tier talent at pre-states regardless of where it's held, so it's worth taking note of the results. Here's the rundown of some of what transpired:
• Boys Varsity IV: Vermont invader Champlain Valley Union won handily, while Pittsford Mendon (101), Fayetteville-Manlius (108), and Cornwall (131) were the class of New York schools.
CVU's Ben Holoch was the winner in 15:35.4, followed by Mendon's Omer Ahmed (15:39.8), and the Goshen duo of Shaun Brenner (15:41.7) and Jackson St. Lawrence (15:41.9).
• Boys Varsity III: Northport won the tiebreaker by 36 spots over Saratoga Springs after they finished at 103 points apiece, with Guilderland (125), Ward Melville (131), and Bethlehem (161) on their heels. Individually, Horace Greeley senior Ryan Sykes ran a blazing 14:53.5, followed by Guilderland's Joseph Kosier (15:10.9).
• Boys Varsity II: Vernon Verona Sherrill (69), Albany Academy (84), and Broadalbin-Perth (122) topped the team standings, with Kayden Mowry of Albany Academy (16:02.1) crossing the line first.
• Boys Varsity I: East Aurora swamped the field by placing eight runners in the top 20, while Phoenix sophomore Jason Perkins (15:30.0) finished about 200 meters clear of the competition.
• Girls Varsity IV: In a race with arguably the deepest and most balanced field of the day, John Jay Cross River (121) edged Monroe-Woodbury (124) and Fayetteville-Manlius (142). Eight other teams checked in with 163 to 258 points.
Out-of-staters took the first two places, followed by F-M sophomore Ella Halbig in 18:24.3.
• Girls Varsity III: Given the section's depth and the school's familiarity with the course, it was hardly surprising to see Saratoga Springs (92), Bethlehem (95), Shenendehowa (123), and Guilderland (136) pace the team scoring.
Syracuse Nottingham senior Delilah Pandori-Howell won in 17:17.2, followed by Riley Lynch of Shenendehowa (17:23.9) and Adriana Pettinelli of Scarsdale (17:36.2).
• Girls Varsity II: Voorheesville (25) rolled past Saranac Lake (86). Joyce Maeve of the Academy of Holy Names cruised to the win in 17:34.8, followed by the Voorheesville trio of Savannah Schmidt (18:26.2), Avery Grant, and Shayla Hyman.
• Girls Varsity I: Beekmantown (95) won a close battle with South Lewis (103) and East Aurora (106), though the schools accounted for just two of the first 10 finishers. Rondout Valley senior Hannah Chapin won the race in 18:47.4.
More weekend action worth noting
No. 12
Orchard Park rallied from a 20-0 deficit to beat No. 17 West Seneca West 26-23 in Class A football action. Quakers senior Dakota Flynn carried the ball in from the 5-yard line with 3:34 left for the go-ahead score.
• Rush-Henrietta senior QB Brendan Mangone completed 13 of 21 attempts for 309 yards and five touchdowns in a 35-7 victory at Fairport. He also recorded seven tackles, a sack and an interception on defense.
• Dartmouth commit Sienna Fallone scored one goal and assisted on the other as Aquinas earned a 2-1 girls soccer victory over Penfield.
Penfield entered the weekend ranked fifth in Class AAA and Aquinas was No. 3 in Class AA.
You'll be seeing more of this
It didn't dawn on me when I read the story in The Times Union earlier this month, but the decision similar to that by a Section 2 baseball star is going to play out more frequently in coming years.
Coming off a productive spring season and summer follow-up, Ballston Spa pitcher Tommy Driver made a visit to the University of Texas and followed it up by committing to the Longhorns.
Driver is a 6-foot-5 right-hander who finished with a 2.80 earned run average and struck out 48 batters over 35 innings last spring. But the relevant piece of his biography is that he has just started his junior year.
Major League Baseball owners and the players' union are headed for a work stoppage that could very well wipe out part or all of the 2027 season. When the sides do get around to settling on the terms of a new collective bargaining agreement, it is expected that high school graduates will no longer be eligible for the amateur draft beginning in July 2028.
That means Driver's graduating class will be the first that is all but forced to head off to college for two or more years before being able to enter the MLB draft.
While there are always players who make verbal commitments (i.e., non-binding) before their junior season on the diamond, it's undoubtedly going to be much more frequent; with NIL money now part of recruitment, it makes sense to make the best possible deal as soon as possible.
Driver has numerous other offers and was going to have a great landing spot even if he waited a bit longer to commit somewhere, but not everyone has 30 offers sitting out there.
