Leading off today: Nolan Gelman has a bit of a problem. The Half Hollow Hills West sophomore needs to be in two places at once on Saturday.

   Gelman is the kicker for the HHHW football team, which is playing Islip for Section 11's Division III championship at noon at Stony Brook University. But he also plays midfield for the soccer team, which takes on Vestal in Oneonta 90 minutes later in a NYSPHSAA Class AA semifinal.

   Gelman scored the winning goal in Sunday's Long Island soccer final against Massapequa. A day earlier, he nailed a 31-yard field goal to finish of a 17-8 football triumph against Rocky Point.

   "There is no issue," soccer coach Doug Gannon told Newsday. "The kid practices with us six days a week. He's coming upstate, believe me."

   Still in action: We count 124 boys or girls teams still in the running for NYSPHSAA championships in football, soccer, field hockey and volleyball or the Federation championships in cross country.

   Section 2 leads the way with 22 squads in action between Friday and Sunday, with a minimum of two alive in all seven tournaments. Section 5 has 19 teams alive, and Section 1 is next with 18, followed by Section 11 (which doesn't participate in football) at 17.

   By the way, I'm hoping Cortland State is writing a check to girls soccer committee for a 100 percent refund on site rental fees for this weekend. The college accepted an ECAC football playoff bid and will host Union on Saturday, forcing nine of the 15 girls semifinals and finals to be moved to nearby sites on short notice.

   It wouldn't surprise me if there was a provision in the contract with the NYSPHSAA to allow Cortland to take back its facilities in the event that a Division III playoff berth materialized — that's pretty standard language in many college contracts — but let's not ignore the fact that the ECAC event is only a consolation bracket for teams not good enough to reach the NCAA Tournament.

   Haldane picks Haskins: Former Peekskill star Kenny Haskins has been appointed girls basketball coach at Haldane, which had its run of 14 coonsecutive Section 1 champonships snapped last season.

   Haskins will be Haldane's fourth coach in five years and the fourth since Ken Thomas retired in 2000 after winning

Fall tournament brackets NYSPHSAA football NYSPHSAA boys soccer NYSPHSAA girls soccer NYSPHSAA field hockey

four state championships.

   Haskins coached the JV boys at Peekskill the last two seasons and has never coached a girls team before. He replaces Rich Desiderio, who was 17-4 but lost the sectional final to Blind Brook in his only season as coach.

   Dept. of bad taste: Gregg Sarra of Newsday used his blog to call out the East Islip band after two students played Taps while a Newfield football player was being attended to on the field for an injury.

   If they're representative of the generation that's supposed to care for me in my old age, then I'm heading to my doctor's office to sign a DNR order. I'll bet the parents of those miscreants are really proud of their offspring.

   It's ridiculous that readers left comments on the blog claiming that the offenders didn't know there was a player injured at the time. What, do they play Taps at East Islip to celebrate touchdowns or something?

   Extra points: Sunday's CHSFL large-school football final is between St. Anthony's and Mt. St. Michael. Former Newsday reporter Jason Molinet has the preview at www.FriarsFootball.com. . . . Mount Vernon basketball star Kevin Jones is likely to announce his college choice today, with Indiana, Massachusetts, West Virginia and Pittsburgh the leading contenders for his services. . . . Irondequoit senior Ricky Henahan will sign a Letter of Intent to swim for Division I power Tennessee next year, according to the Democrat and Chronicle. . . . The NYSPHSAA's Executive Committee has given approval to the proposed changes for football class cutoffs next fall: Class AA (1051 and up), Class A (626-1050), Class B (441-625), Class C (281-440) and Class D (280 and below). They also gave boys basketball teams approval to experiment with 16-minute halves in the 2008-09 season. . . . Count me among those uncomfortable with the Press & Sun-Bulletin finding it OK to run ads for an adult "boutique" (someplace called Lovejoy's, to be specific) on its online high school sports pages. I assume it's a conscious decision, since the Open AdStream software they utlize easily allows sites to target ads to specific sections of a site.

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