Leading off today: Former Wallkill girls soccer player Jasmin Crespi pleaded guilty today in Orange County Court to punching another player during post-game handshakes at a high school soccer game in 2006, the Times-Herald Record reported.

   Crespi, 19, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of third-degree assault. She admitted that she punched Cornwall's Ashley Thorpe on Oct. 31, 2006, causing injuries that required Thorpe to undergo surgery.

   In exchange for her plea, Judge Robert Freehill agreed to cap Crespi's sentence at 60 days in jail. She'll be sentenced on Feb. 4. A civil case remains pending.

   The criminal case took two years to resolve because of an appeal. Crespi was originally charged with felony assault under New York’s Safe Schools Against Violence in Education Act, but Freehill threw out the felony charge last year, prompting the appeal. Freehill's ruling was overturned on procedural grounds but held up after the case was returned to his court following the appeal.

   Boys & Girls in the spotlight: Though it's billed as "A Woman Among Boys," Sunday's ESPN2 documentary is less about coach Ruth Lovelace than it is about the Boys & Girls basketball prgram as a whole.

   Producer-directors Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill followed the team around for the entire 2007-08 school year, attending three or four practices and games per week, and captured the highs and lows as Lovelace came within a game of becoming the first female to coach a boys basketball team to a PSAL championship.

   Lovelace has sent 35 players to college on full scholarships since taking over as coach at the age of 24 in 1994. That number is more impressive when put into the proper context: Boys & Girls enrollment is an unwieldy 4,300 students -- more than the combined enrollment of Section 5's 25 smallest basketball schools combined -- and the school is situated in the dangerous Bed-Stuy neighborhood in Brooklyn.

   Indeed, one of the more compelling stories is that of Shalik Jenkins, now a freshman at SUNY New Paltz. Jenkins' father was jailed before his son's birth and was eventually sentenced to life in prison.

   Another vignette had the mother of guard Clayton Sterling bringing her son to the homeless shelter in which she lived while attending college, a moment made more powerful by

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the fact that the player attracted minimal interest from Division I schools despite averaging 16.8 points and 5 assists. Sterling had to sweat it out to the very end, finally signing scholarship papers to the University of Toledo over the summer.

   So it's easy to see why the documentary, which airs Sunday at 9 p.m., is more about the program that produced Connie Hawkins and Pearl Washington than it is about Lovelace. Nevertheless, she remains a highly visible figure in the New York City basketball community as she tries to bring her alma mater its first PSAL championship since 1979.

   Though she knows X's and O's, Lovelace is part den mother, part truant officer and part guidance counselor on any given day.

   If you attended school in a middle-class, suburban environment, "A Woman Among Boys" will serve as an eye-opener.

   Suspended coach wins a round in court: The Buffalo Board of Education has been ordered to pay $9,356 in legal fees for suspended McKinley basketball coach James Daye, The Buffalo News reported.

   State Supreme Court Justice Christopher J. Burns also refused to order Daye to reimburse the board more than $10,000 for the documents he was belatedly given in connection with his continuing efforts to resume teaching and coaching duties.

   Burns faulted the School Board for having "no reasonable basis for denying access to the materials" concerning the investigation conducted by attorney David L. Edmunds Jr. for the board. Daye's attorney, Brian M. Melber, asked for the materials in May.

   Melber said Daye is still fighting to get back his job at McKinley, where he had been had basketball coach and had been slated to become head football coach. The state is continuing to investigate allegations that Daye had sex with a student while he was a teacher in South Carolina, the paper reported. Daye has publicly contended he is a victim of "false allegations and threats."    Daye has been on paid leave since March.

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