Leading off today: Iona Prep's Alex Adami started and finished his own game yesterday, switching arms in the course of six two-hit innings, to beat Scarsdale, 2-1.

   Adami pitched the five innings right-handed, left the mound for the sixth, then returned to pitch the seventh left-handed. Adami struck out nine right-handed and the first batter he faced pitching left-handed.

   "They were all pretty much in shock," Adami told The Journal News. "When I went out there throwing left-handed, and struck out the first kid on four pitches, their whole team was like, 'Whoa, what just happened?'"

   Although he previously experimented throwing from both sides, this was the first time he pitched both righty and lefty in a high school game. At the plate, Adami had a double and a triple and scored a run.

   Coach battles cancer: Mechanicville boys basketball coach Joe Loudis has been diagnosed with bladder cancer, The Times Union reported.

   Loudis, 66, nearly died last fall after bouts of pneumonia and heart and liver failure. Tests taken at about that time discovered the cancer, and Loudis twice postponed surgery while guiding Mechanicville to the state final at Glens Falls. The operation was performed March 19 in Albany.

   Loudis said he has two different forms of "treatable" bladder cancer and will begin a series of six treatments beginning April 26.

   "They believe they have caught this in a very early stage," Loudis said.

   Ichabod Crane starting football: The push to launch a football program at Ichabod Crane High School reached the end zone Tuesday as a booster organization presented a check for $58,904 to the school board, covering the first three years of expenses.

   The school plans to field a junior varsity team this September, with varsity play to begin in 2009.

   Dueling all-star games: USA Today did an interesting piece this week on the rivalry between the U.S. Army All-American Bowl and the Under Armour All-American High School Football Game.

   Last week, the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, scheduled Jan. 3 on NBC, said it had commitments from eight of

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Rivals.com's top 10 recruits in the class of 2009. The Under Armour game, Jan. 4 on ESPN, then revealed it had commitments from 47 players.

   Tumbling into the ER: HealthDay News reported today that more than 26,000 children each year end up in U.S. hospital emergency rooms due to gymnastic-related injuries, according to a new study in the April issue of Pediatrics.

   "Gymnastics has one of the highest injury rates of all girls' sports, and the injury rates are similar to that of other high-injury sports, such as soccer, basketball and cheerleading," said study senior author Lara McKenzie, an assistant professor in the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

   An estimated 600,000 youngsters participate in school-sponsored or club-level gymnastic competitions each year, according to the study. McKenzie analyzed data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System for 1990 through 2005. During that time, 425,000 athletes between the ages of 6 and 17 were treated in ERs for gymnastics-related injuries.

   About 82 percent of the gymnasts were female, and about 50 percent were between 6 and 11 years old. Just 1.7 percent of those injured had to be admitted to the hospital.

   Because the researchers only included ER visits, the number of gymnastics injuries reported in the study is likely underestimated. Dr. Jan Grudziak, an orthopaedic surgeon in Pittsburgh, added that the study also didn't "address chronic problems, such as overuse injuries."

   "The level of competition in gymnastics has risen incredibly fast — 6- and 7-year-old girls are now doing what 14-year-olds used to do," said Grudziak. "It's unbelievable what kids are doing now compared to 20 years ago, but kids' bodies are still the same. They're not getting like Arnold Schwarzenegger suddenly.

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