Holiday assessment
With a foot of snow on the ground and travel rather difficult, maybe it's a good chance to take stock of where we are as 2013 looms. A couple of games played in Albany before the break were quite instructive. Bishop Ludden reinforced its status as the Class A pace-setter ...
Joining the conversation
Now winter sports is fully underway. The last holdouts was indoor track, but last Wednesday and Friday the Jack Morse Relays kicked off the winter full of activity at SRC Arena. Much like Manley Field House in the old days, OCC is now the go-to venue, which likely saved a ...
First dribbles
Only a total junkie would consider this schedule - two basketball games Thursday night, one on Friday night, four on Saturday, four on Sunday. Consider me hooked. There's now been enough hoops, with just about everyone underway, to start make some preliminary observations on the 2012-13 scene, knowing full well ...
The Hornets' seventh heaven
Yeah, they were starting winter sports, with varied amounts of basketball, hockey, wrestling and volleyball to chew over. Yet this was all early-in-the-regular-season trivia compared to the history taking place about 2,400 miles away in Portland, as the Fayetteville-Manlius girls cross country made it seven national championships in a row ...
The twist at the end
This is how those state football championships at the Carrier Dome were supposed to go. Randolph would win again, Sweet Home would win again, Hornell would win again, Maine-Endwell would win again, Orchard Park would win again, cut, paste, wash, soak, rinse, spin, yawn. Count that as two cases where ...
Tornadoes actually save the day
On this sun-kissed November Sunday, it was left to Tara Seigle to save things for Section III. Already, it had proven brutal. Skaneateles, trying to get the state Class B girls volleyball championship in the morning at Glens Falls Civic Center, got a tutorial in championship play from John Glenn, ...
Good for the girls, bad for the boys
Want to find success stories and local high school teams still fighting for state championships? Look to the female side, and do so exclusively. Whether in volleyball, or field hockey, or girls soccer, no less than five Section III sides made their way to Championship Sunday. None did so among ...
Happy Hornets again
So naturally after enduring wind, various forms of precipitation, lots of mud and bone-chilling temperatures for the Section III meet at VVS, those that went to the state cross country meet at Elma Meadows, in the outskirts of Buffalo, got to run in sunshine and November warmth. The state championship ...
Soccer regionals recap: Three out of five, twice over
Ten Section III soccer champions started the regional round. Six of them are still going, three boys teams going to Middletown, three girls teams going to Cortland, all state final four-bound. It wasn't just that the success rate of the soccer sides more than trumped what took place on the ...
CBA saves the day
So this is what the 2012 Section III football season has come down to - everyone in Central New York rallying around.....Christian Brothers Academy. Really. This is not the norm. Rarely does a week, or a day, or an hour go boy without some public-school coach, or parent, whining about ...
About sticks, runners and a pool
Safe to say, this was a busy weekend. Aside from the football championships and soccer titles decided (which we'll get to in the next entry), there was the small matter of handing out Section III titles in field hockey, cross country and girls swimming. The sticks part played out at ...
Five Dome crowns
They didn't lack for big plays, nor for excitement, in the five Section III football championship games played out over two nights on the grand stage of the Carrier Dome. It was a strange, potent and fascinating mix of familiarity, especially on Saturday, joined by new blood that emerged with ...
Drawn-out kicks, Part I
No way could I wait for all of the Section III soccer semifinals to be done, The whole thing is going to take five days to sort itself out, and by that time we're into the finals, and this whole overlap thing goes on. Instead, what we'll do is go ...
Calm before the storms...and Sandy, too!
You know, it would be nice to have a quiet evening at home, someday, no one or two games to run to and a dozen others to follow. That day will arrive, soon. The plan here was to have a nice Monday evening to relax and kick back before the ...
And now to the Dome
When the rain began to cascade down Saturday night at Marcellus High School, it came just in time. The 10 teams still left playing Section III football were quite eager to go indoors. Two days worth of semifinal games produced some serious contrasts in the upper classes, but some clear ...
Boys soccer playoff primer
All through this week, Section III's boys soccer teams begin their post-season journey. For most of them, it's a short trip, one game, maybe two games, and then it's over. For a fortunate sextet, it will lead to a championship banner, and perhaps a few of them will travel all ...
Girls soccer playoff primer
Sometime late on Tuesday afternoon, the portion of the girls soccer season where every game ends someone's dreams of ultimate glory gets underway. The process takes nearly four weeks to go from opening round of Section III play until the last state championship plaque is handed out in the Cortland/Homer ...
From 40 to 20
What kicked off Thursday night at Jamesville-DeWitt did not end until Saturday night, down the road at Chittenango, when Lowville left the turf triumphant. Such was the opening round of the Section III football playoffs, which had its fair share of mismatches, but also immensely impressive efforts on both sides ...
On with the champions' roll
The further you go into October, the more we start to hand out the important team and individual honors for Section III fall sports. Already with the individual singles and doubles tennis titles in the books, it was time to go for team championships, all leading to Wednesday's finals at ...
Forty dreams, five titles
Mid-October, the leaves turning, and after a month and a half of games played in everything from stifling summer heat to steady rain to raw chill, the Section III football playoffs are set to go. Sure, the Class C side got a head start, but now there's just eight teams ...