Schenevus ended a 60-game skid in boys basketball last night with a 39-37 triumph against Gilbertsville-Mount Upton as Andrew Beams poured in 15 points. Patrick Weinert added 11 points for Schenevus, which nearly surrendered a seven-point lead in the final 1:30.

   "I'm so proud of my kids," first-year coach Tony Dilello told The Daily Star. "They've worked so hard all season and it's a reward for them. I think this is going to catapult us. The kids are going to start believing in themselves."

   Free throws made the difference, with Schenevus (1-4) going 19-for-38 and G-MU just 2-for-2 from the line.

   Schenevus' win came one night after Friendship snapped a 43-game losing streak spanning 971 days by downing Canaseraga 38-37 in overtime. The Golden Eagles scored five points in the final :19 of regulation and then rattled off seven of the first eight points OT for their first triumph since the first round of the 2007 Section 5 tournament.

   More basketball: No. 19 Pittsford Sutherland remained unbeaten in Class A boys action with a 63-61 win over crosstown rival Mendon. Dan O'Keefe (15 points) scored on a drive to the bucket with :02 to go in overtime in the Rainbow Classic at the University of Rochester.

   The event raised more than $21,000 for the Golisano Children's Hospital at Strong, bringing the nine-year total for the award-winning Rainbow Classic to well over $200,000.

   No. 1 keeps rolling: The Averill Park girls, ranked No. 1 in Class A by the New York State Sportswriters Association, scored a 45-36 victory over Class AA No. 3 Shenendehowa as senior guard Michela Ottati returned from an early injury to score 12 points on a quartet of 3-pointers.

   Ottati, a transfer from Amsterdam, left with a second-quarter knee injury but returned to snap an 18-18 tie and give AP the lead for good.

   “Michela is a very important part of our team and when she went down, I think everybody kind of held their breath,” Averill Park coach Sean Organ told The Saratogian. "I got out there and Michela, she was in pain. She felt like she tweaked her knee a little bit, she said she had some tingling and some numbness and she said she couldn’t quite feel her foot. I think she just cramped up."

   New on the Internet: Congratulations to former Journal News sportswriter Tony Pinciaro, who recently launched RocklandSportsNews.com to cover the local scene, with emphasis on 11 area high schools.

   Pinciaro covered the scene in Westchester, Putnam, Rockland and Dutchess counties for 24 years.

   Busted: The New York Post more or less proved this week that the PSAL's transfer rules don't work, particularly when they're enforced so inconsistently.

   Reporters Zach Braziller and Marc Raimondi documented a number of recent rulings that seem to defy logic in light of the fact that basketball players facing similar circumstances received drastically different rulings.

   PSAL eligibility coordinator Alan Blanc green-lighted Abraham Lincoln junior Kamari Murphy this week on the grounds that he was not on Bishop Ford’s active roster when the PSAL began the investigation Dec. 4 even though Murphy had played in seven scrimmages for his former school.

   As recently as last season, Transit Tech sophomore Richard Williams was declared ineligible after a transfer from Washington Irving under virtually identical circumstances. Blanc’s ruling in the Williams case was later overturned by the PSAL.

   This season, Transit Tech senior Deylon Bovell was put on the proverbial rollercoaster after his transfer from Teachers Prep. He had received a safety transfer last spring after being mugged at knife point, was yanked from the floor by a PSAL decision moments before the Dec. 1 opener and then reinstated after the player's family threatened to go to court.

   It's a very compelling read, particularly when you get a comment like this from respected Boys & Girls coach Ruth Lovelace: “It's blatant. There's separate rules for different people. It's really sad."

   Sentenced: A former Albany County assistant public defender was sentenced yesterday to jail for a misconduct conviction involving having sex with a client in return for promising to work harder on her case.

   Immediately after being sentenced to a one-year jail term, Matthew Swedick posted $10,000 bail pending appeal. Sedwick, 37, is a former Johnstown football star who set several Section 2 records and held the state passing yardage mark for more than a decade following his graduation in 1989.

   City Court Judge Thomas Keefe sentenced Swedick to the maximum time for a Class A misdemeanor. "I was shocked by the judge's sentence for a first-time offender with no prior record who had contributed greatly to the community," defense attorney James Long told The Times Union.