Leading off today: Girls basketball coach Apache Paschall of Nazareth High in Brooklyn is under investigation for alleged recruiting, The New York Daily News reported yesterday.

   The CHSAA Brooklyn/Queens eligibility and infractions committee will determine whether Paschall committed violations, according to John Lorenzetti, chairman of the CHSAA principals' committee.

   The investigation was spurred by a Nov. 22 Daily News report that detailed Paschall traveling to players’ homes in an effort to recruit them to play at Nazareth following the closing last spring of St. Michael Academy, which he coached to the 2009 Federation Class AA championship.

   A finding that violations occurred could shut down the Nazareth program for the remainder of this season as well as 2011-12, the paper reported.

   About half of the players in the SMA program followed Paschall to the Brooklyn school. The coach said six current freshmen had enrolled at SMA before the closing was announced.

   Fort Hamilton wins PSAL title: Senior H-back Dylan Campili caught a two-point conversion pass from Marvin Centeno late in the third quarter, and it held up as the winning points for Fort Hamilton in an 8-6 victory over Abraham Lincoln yesterday in the PSAL football championship at Yankee Stadium.

   "The funny part is we practiced that (Monday) all day and he dropped it four times," coach Danny Perez said. "Now in crunch time in Yankee Stadium with the game on the line, he caught it. He couldn’t catch a cold yesterday, but he sure caught that one.”

   Indoor changes: The National Scholastic Sports Foundation announced a multi-year partnership with New Balance for its indoor national championships, which will be held at The Armory in New York City next March 11-13.

   The NSSF had partnered with Nike for 12 years for the indoor meet. New Balance replaced Nike in the partnership for the outdoor championships last spring as well. The NSSF and Nike collaborated on the Nike Cross Nationals last weekend.

   The NSSF began hosting its national meets with Nike in 1999, most recently the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston. It wasn't immediately clear what will happen to the National Scholastic Indoor Championships, previously scheduled at The Armory the same weekend as the NSSF meet. The Armory website no longer lists that event on its website.

   Overturned: West Virginia's Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a circuit judge exceeded her authority when she allowed four South Charleston players to compete in the Class AAA football semifinals.

   The justices sided with the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission, which appealed after Kanawha Circuit Judge Carrie Webster allowing the four to play in the semifinal win against Brooke, and in the since-postponed championship game against Martinsburg.

   The WVSSAC intends to require South Charleston to forfeit its 29-28 semifinal victory, moving Brooke into the final. The association had suspended the players following a fight during a Nov. 19 quarterfinal.

   Late start: Frontier League coaches are unhappy with Section 3, which pushed back the start of winter practice by two weeks this season. The Frontier League holds basketball playoffs before sectionals, which leaves them with 10 to 14 fewer days to fit in their regular season.

   "I don't think I can use appropriate words to show my dissatisfaction with it," Sackets Harbor coach Jeff Robbins told The Daily Times in Watertown. "I think it's absolutely ridiculous that we are the only section starting two weeks late."

   Frontier League secretary Bob Kowalick told the paper the switch was pushed through by Syracuse- and Utica-area schools looking to cut costs by not having to rent ice time in hockey or reserve bowling lanes. In theory, it also allowed schools to shut down lights and heat at night in the event there were no other activities scheduled in the building.

   "If the reason is to save money, it is not in basketball," South Jefferson coach Fred Piche said. "We were in the gym most of the time shooting anyway. The schedule is

Road To Glens Falls boys hoops site

always tight after Christmas. But now it will be worse, even if there are no cancellations."

   New Jersey takes action: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed into law a bill that requires coaches to bench any player who shows signs of a concussion until a doctor approves their return.

   In addition, all public and private schools will have to develop policies to handle head injuries.

   "This is not about someone not willing to play hard in whatever sport they're in," Christie said. "This is about protecting someone's long-term health from being overwhelmed by the sense of competition we sometimes feel in our country."

   Christie was joined at the signing ceremony by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who has written to governors across the country asking them to take action similar to a law created in Washington state.

   Tragedy inevitable? The incident that took the life of a 16-year-old baseball catcher from Garfield, N.J., last week may not have been preventable no matter what kind of protective gear he was wearing, doctors and sports equipment experts said.

   In some instances, chest protectors could even create danger, Mike Oliver, executive director of the

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National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE), told NorthJersey.com.

   Sophomore Thomas Adams collapsed and died after being struck in the chest with a baseball in a school gym in Paterson. He was wearing a chest protector, witnesses said.

   Adams is believed to have died from commotio cordis, in which a blow to the chest wall at a specific point between beats disrupts the electrical activity in the heart. Even immediate treatment with a defibrillator restores a steady heartbeat less than 20 percent of the time.

   Oliver said NOCSAE research indicates that commotio cordis occurs with an impact equivalent to a 40-mph pitch and that some lacrosse chest protectors may slow a thrown ball down into that lethal range.

   "One of the unique hallmarks of that event is that it happens more often than not to someone who is wearing a chest protector in lacrosse, to kids in ice hockey and kids in baseball," Oliver said. "It turns out that not only did the (lacrosse) chest protectors not have an effect, but there were one or two that actually increased the chance of commotio cordis."

   Extra points: Hall of Fame women's basketball coach Pat Summitt was in Central New York last week to watch highly regarded Cicero-North Syracuse junior center Breanna Stewart in a scrimmage, Post-Standard reported. . . . Abraham Lincoln junior guard Shaquille Mosley has transferred back to Uniondale and junior forward Ian Vasquez, who arrived from Wings Academy following his sophomore year, is still ineligible due to the PSAL's transfer eligibility rules, coach Dwayne "Tiny" Morton told The New York Daily News on Friday.