Leading off today: It's four days later and I still can't get over what the Fayetteville-Manlius girls pulled off at the NYSPHSAA cross country meet.

   For the second year in a row, the Hornets posted a perfect score en route to the Class AA championship at the meet on Saturday. In a sense, they went one better this time around.

   In the 2009 meet at Plattsburgh, F-M had the top five overall finishers in the race en route to 15 team points. This time, runners from two other schools cracked the top five, but F-M still put up a perfect score -- by getting their first six competitors through the chute before any another team qualifiers crossed the finish line. Junior Christie Rutledge was first in 17:31 and junior Jillian Fanning second in 17:46.1 F-M's Katie Sischo, Courtney Chapman and Heather Martin finished fifth, sixth and eight, respectively to round out the scoring, and Katie Brislin was ninth overall but sixth for purposes of scoring.

   Saratoga, merely second in the nation, finished second in the team race with 45 points.

   It was very impressive a year ago when F-M posted a 15 in the scoring and then went on to its fourth straight championship at the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Ore. The ideal of them doing it again to cap the 2010 season boggles the mind.

   Total aside: The NYSPHSAA cross country meet is one of the events I looked forward to covering in my younger days in the business because the quality of the competition was so high and there were so many interesting storylines. This year was no exception, beginning with the performance by F-M.

   The Class A developments alone would have qualified as the major story of the day if not for F-M, as the favored Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake boys and girls -- each ranked No. 1 in the state -- both finished third. The North Shore girls and McQuaid boys took team honors, with the Knights also getting a first-place finish from senior Robert Hurlbut in an upset of Burnt Hills standout Otis Ubriaco.

   Bronxville pulled a minor upset by edging Greenwich 48-51 in Class C as freshman Mary Cain and sophomore Meredith Rizzo finished first and second, respectively.

   And the East Aurora girls won their sixth Class B crown in a row, setting Walt McLaughlin's crew up for a run at history next year. Honeoye Falls-Lima girl cross country (1998-2004) holds the state record in any sport by winning seven straight NYSPHSAA championships.

   Signed, sealed, delivered: The early-signing period for NCAA recruits commenced last week, and there were ceremonies across the state.

   It's doubtful any N.Y. schools had a festive a day to match St. Anthony's. The last time ink touched paper this many times with signatures may have been when we opted for free agency from England on July 4, 1776.

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   The South Huntington school held a ceremony Wednesday for 21 athletes signing national letters of intent.

   "People want to know why Sports Illustrated has named us as one of the top programs in America. Look around," Friars AD Don Buckley told the crowd. "It's in this room. And they have set the standard for others."

   For the second straight year, the quarterback of the Friars football team signed -- to play lacrosse. Charlie Raffa will play midfield at the University of Maryland. Highly coveted lacrosse defender Greg Danseglio confirmed his commitment to Virginia.

   What a save: It was a big weekend for competition in a variety of sports, but the most clutch performance of them all took place in the press box at Midwood Athletic Complex, where quick thinking quite possibly saved the life of Erasmus Hall AD Marshall Tames.

   Tames, a fountain of PSAL knowledge, was handling

the public address announcements when he collapsed, The New York Post reported. Chris Miccio, one of Tames' players at Midwood two decades ago, was operating the scoreboard for the PSAL playoff game and jumped into action.

   Miccio began CPR on Tames while the Midwood assistants also jumped into action, utilizing first-aid training that is required for their jobs. Josh Rubin made sure someone was calling 911, and Tom Esposito ran down to the field to grab the automated external defibrillator (AED). Doctors Gene Tekmyster, and Ed Golembe followed him back to the press box and helped stabilize Tames until an ambulance arrived.

   "It goes to show that it really is important to do this kind of thing," Miccio told the paper. "All the coaches on our staff go and get it done. Whether you’re a volunteer or a paid coach, you have to get your CPR certification.”

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   Over and over: Hey, this final score just in: Andover 88, Lowell 82.

   That's not a score from opening weekend of basketball season in Massachusetts. Rather, that's how a high school football game ended there Friday in a scintillating eight-overtime affair.

   Junior QB Andy Coke ran 10 yards for his eighth touchdown to provide the winning points in the 3½-hour game. which was tied at 28 at the end of regulation. The record of 12 overtimes was set last month in Texas.

   Coke ran 36 times for 165 yards and the eight TDs. He also ran for six two-point conversions. Lowell junior QB Kyle Edwards completed 20 of 26 passes for 191 yards and seven touchdowns.

   Staying put: Eight Dutchess County Section 1 schools will not be joining Section 9, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported last week.

   Representatives from Dover, Pawling, John Jay, Ketcham, Poughkeepsie, Our Lady of Lourdes, Beacon and Arlington had been pondering a move.

   “All of the Dutchess schools plan to continue their current affiliation for the 2011-2012 school year,” Millbrook Superintendent Lloyd Jaeger told the paper. "The research project and long-range review of Dutchess County schools alignment is something that all of the districts wish to continue. We’ve had good cooperation from the Section 9 and Section 1 executive directors in terms of trying to understand if any of the districts would reaffiliate."

   A little too flippant: I'm still shaking my head over the blunder in the Section 5 swim meet this month.

   The bulkhead at Webster Aquatic Center was set incorrectly for preliminary races in Class A. Swimming an extra foot each length of the pool didn't make too much of a difference, I'm sure, but combined with screwing up the rhythm on flip turns it certainly threw off some performances.

   "A mistake was made," sectional coordinator Henry Savage told the Democrat and Chronicle. "In the grand scheme of things, nobody died."

   Perhaps, but the mistake may have killed the state-meet ambitions of a girl or two, so a flip answer like that was ill-advised.

   Extra points: Nice weekend for Baldwinsville. The Bees advanced their boys and girls soccer team and football team to state semifinals this week. The girls volleyball squad advanced to final four action in Glens Falls as well. . . . Pete Tobey at The Post-Star posted an interesting blog recently regarding the prospect of reviving eight-man football in New York. With so many schools dropping the sport before or after the 2010 season, eight-man football sounds like something that should be considered. . . . Also last week, The Journal News did a nice piece on assistant football coaches.