Leading off today: Abraham Lincoln went on a 26-13 scoring run with star junior Lance Stephenson on the bench and defeated Holy Cross, 86-67, for the Federation boys Class AA basketball championship yesterday at the Glens Falls Civic Center.

   Stephenson dunked a dead ball and was hit with a technical foul and his second personal with 1:07 remaining in the first quarter. He sat out the remainder of the half, but forward Justin Greene (10 rebounds) took over with eight of his 19 points in the second quarter.

   Darwin Ellis led Lincoln with 20 points, Khalif Staten added 14 on 6-of-6 shooting and Stephenson chipped in with 16 points and 12 rebounds.

   Lincoln dominated the Knights on the boards with a 41-27rebounding advantage. Sylven Landesberg led Holy Cross with 31 points.

   Leading off today: Murry Bergtraum worked almost effortlessly in running its winning streak to 53 games with a 61-47 decision against St. John the Baptsis in the Federation girls Class AA basketball final. It was Bergtraum's fifth Federation championship.

   Seniors Krystal Parnell and Shakeya Leary scored 17 and 12 points, respectively.

   Chapel Field chafed: As the Times Herald-Record noted, Chapel Field's program has a 12-player roster, practices with water-logged softballs, and has only 200 students from which to draw.

   But Section 9 apparently has seen enough and has bumped the the private school's softball team up to Class C for the 2008 season. It's a response to nine straight sectional championships and five NYSPHSAA Class D championships in the last decade.

   It's the first time Section 9 has used its reclassification process to move a team up. Coach Bill Spanjer Jr. said he was told that Chapel Field held an unfair advantage because the school could attract kids from distant communities.

   "I didn't like the implications about our program, like what we've done the past 10 years has been due to an unfair

Winter tournament brackets Federation boys and girls basketball NYSPHSAA boys basketball NYSPHSAA girls basketball NYSPHSAA boys ice hockey

advantage compared to hard work and building a program," he told the paper. "We have not cherry-picked our players from other programs, and it's not the reason we've won.

   As I've noted before, I'm not opposed to the idea of reclassifying highly successful private schools to even the playing field. However, the current system is flawed on several counts:

• There is no uniform state rule for administrating the process, and there appears to be no consistency in the way it's handled by various sections.
• The biggest criticism of private schools — they've not constrained by district boundary lines — rings hollow when you consider that many public school districts have open-enrollment policies. In the Rochester area, for instance, Greece Odyssey and Rochester Charlotte play in Class C even though they can enroll students from anywhere in town.
• Teams that get moved up are not guaranteed the right to play a corresponding regular-season schedule. Aquinas girls soccer (full disclosure reminder: I'm an Aquinas graduate, Class of '80) has played a largely Class A schedule the last two years because it cannot get games against Class AA opponents despite being moved up to that level.

   There's likely to be a uniform state rule dictating the process in the near future, but the other two issues remain unresolved.

   Behind the scenes: Kate Fagan of The Post-Star profiled Tom Konchalski over the weekend, catching up with one of the nation's most influential high school basketball scouts.

   "Konch," a 1968 Fordham grad, watches a ton of basketball each year, and college coaches frequently seek his opinion on players. About 225 college coaches subscribed to his service this year, and New York magazine named him one of the eight most influential people in metro-area sports — alongside George Steinbrenner.

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