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John Moriello's NYSSWA blog
Saturday, Dec. 29, 2007: East Rochester boys lose Florida tourney semifinal in five overtimes
   Leading off today: East Rochester played the last five seconds with just two boys on the court during a 115-111 loss to Richmond, Calif., Salesian last night in a basketball tournament in Orlando, Fla.

   Anthony Danizio scored 51 points and was one of 12 players (six for each team) to foul out in the game in the semifinals of the KSA Holiday Tournament. He made 22 of 24 free-throw attempts.

   Regulation ended with the teams tied at 61, and it was 88-88 after the third OT. Conor Boyer fouled out early in the fourth OT, leaving East Rochester with just four players on the court. Danazio followed him to the bench three minutes later, leaving the Bombers in a 3-on-5 pinch. Sean Michele (37 points) then fouled out in the closing moments of the fith extra session.

   The game lasted 3 hours, 5 minutes and had 76 fouls called, according to the Contra Costa Times in California.

   "There were four other games going on and they stopped the other games and everyone came over to watch," ER coach Mark Michele told the Democrat and Chronicle. "Everyone was rooting for us, especially when we only had four players. We just kept coming back! Even some Salesian fans came up to me and told me that they were rooting for us."

   Freshman Jabari Brown scored 25 of his team-high 35 points after the end of regulation for the winners. He scored the final bucket in regulation and added a buzzer-beating three-pointer in the third OT.

   Peekskill prevails: Brandon Triche's three-pointer hit the rim as time expired, leaving No. 7 Jamesville-DeWitt on the short end of a 63-60 final against No. 1 Peekskill in a Class A showdown at the Slam Dunk Challenge in White Plains.

   Sophomore guard Daquan Brickhouse drove for the go-ahead bucket with under a minute to go and Mookie Jones added a free throw for the final point as Peekskill advanced to the championship game against Class AA No. 11 White Plains.

   Jones finished with 22 points on 6-for-25 shooting (0-for-11 from beyond the arc) and added 15 rebounds. Triche scored 13 points.

   400th wrestling win: Central Square wrestling Coach Bob Coppola, 57, earned his 400th victory in 29 seasons as the Red Hawks defeated Sandy Creek, 46-31, in his school's Brett D. Dixon dual meet tournament.

   His overall record is 400-213-4. Coppola is the 11th coach in state history to reach 400. Fulton Coach

  
Mike Conners reached the milestone earlier this month.

   Following up: When I blogged the other day about a possible change in the qualifying process for the state wrestling tournament, I neglected to mention one other concern that an alert downstate reader brought to my attention via e-mail.

   Adding another layer of meets in the form of regional qualifiers would increase the number of times that top-notch competitors could wrestle each other in one season. On the surface, that would seem to be a positive with respect to creating media and fan interest in a sport that can certainly use some love, but the potential for repetition bordering on the tedious turns it into a negative.

   Consider this: Two top-notch guys from the same league could meet in a regular-season dual, two (or more) in-season tournaments, the league championships, sectionals, Supersectionals, the regional qualifier and the state meet.

   That's eight possible head-to-heads, which is severe overkill for a state with something like 535 varsity wrestling teams.

   What's in a name? The Buffalo News says there's sentiment in the suburbs for renaming Kenmore West’s Crosby Field in honor of Jules Yakapovich and/or Richard Offenheimer, prominent figures in the history of the school’s football program.

   That could turn into a devisive decision in a hurry, because the name of the facility currently honors the memory on Lt. Harry E. Crosby, who was killed in World War I as his platoon in the National Guard’s 108th Infantry Regiment charged a fortified German position near Le Catelet, France.

   VFW Post 2472 took up Crosby's name in 1932, and the field was renamed in his honor in 1940. Part of the case for changing the name of the field is that relatively little is known about the fallen soldier other than he lived in Kenmore.

   To its credit, the board is not rushing into making a change. School Board President Melissa Brinson said she contacted the local historian to learn more about Crosby, and a report is expected soon.

   I love football as much as the next guy, but it seems awfully callous and disrespectful to take a fallen soldier's name off the field in favor of some football guys. I mean, it's not as though you're the school board in the California community that had to rename Steve Garvey Junior High a few years back when Mr. Dodger's reputation started taking some hits.


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