New York: Mount Vernon's Wright Picks George Mason

Some of the decisions are coming a little early and others a little late, but some of New York’s top high school athletes are nevertheless firming up their college plans as the current academic year hits the home stretch.

Sherrod Wright, Mt. Vernon

Photo By Lonnie Webb

In basketball, George Mason scored a coup by getting an verbal commitment from 6-foot-4 Mount Vernon senior guard Sherrod Wright, who will sign a letter of intent this week according to The Journal News.

Wright had multiple options that included late pushes from Marquette and Providence and could certainly have signed with teams in conferences superior to the Colonial Athletic Association. But he looked beyond the obvious and saw that Jim Larranaga’s team is losing several guards and small forwards to graduation, so Wright is in line for significant early minutes at a program that reached the Division I Final Four in 2006.

"The big schools is where you get noticed," Wright told the paper. "But the tournament is where you get known."

Wright averaged 23.2 points per game as a senior and leaves Mount Vernon with four Section I and two New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships.

On the football front, rapidly rising Lawrence quarterback John Kinder, a 6-3 junior, says he will sign a letter of intent with Syracuse in February.

Kinder was 71-for-112 for 1,184 yards, 10 TD passes and only one interception as a first-year starter last fall while also rushing for more than 1,000 yards and another 13 TDs.

Kinder doesn’t show up on a lot of recruiting service lists in part because he was still playing junior-varsity football as a sophomore, but a number of eastern schools wanted him to attend their camps, which would have likely brought on more offers ahead of his senior season.

By the way, the first New York junior of note to commit in football was Sean Fitzpatrick. The 6-5 Pittsford tight end announced in February that he had made an oral commitment to Maryland.

 Baseball: Big week for milestone victories

* Queensbury coach Jay Marra collected his 500th career victory with a 5-4 victory over Schalmont in eight innings last week. Marra, in his 31st season, is second in Section II history to Craig Phillips of Fort Plain, who won his 600th game last week.

Schalmont’s Kyle McKelvey tied the game with a two-run home run in the seventh. Queensbury's Tim Hughes drew a two-out walk in the eighth, stole second and came all the way home on a ground ball up the middle that the second baseman scooped but couldn’t turn it into a play at first.

* Steve Sarcone struck out nine Livonia batters during a 6-3 victory in the Mingo Bay Classic in South Carolina that was No. 400 for Utica Proctor coach Dave Guido.

* Lucas Klirsfeld and Eric Carrasquillo drove in two runs apiece for Long Beach in a 6-2 win over Elmont to give 36th-year coach Carmine Lombardo his 400th victory.

"Actually, I never thought I would coach this long to get 400 wins," Lombardo told Newsday. "I thought I would have retired by now. I was never thinking about it until the latter part of last year. It's exciting and a nice accomplishment, but it takes a lot of years of coaching."

More Baseball: Drama and dominating efforts

* Senior shortstop Ed Marchand hit a two-out, two-strike walkoff grand slam in the seventh inning in C.G. Finney's 8-7 win over Honeoye in the opening round of the Midlakes Tournament. Marchand finished with five runs batted in.

* Margaretville coach Rick Funck says sophomore Patrick O'Connell's perfect game April 9 was the first no-hitter by a Blue Devil in his 25 seasons on the job. In striking out 10 batters, O'Connell -- already in his fourth varsity season -- extended his hitless streak to 11 innings.

* Newburgh Free Academy is off to a 7-0 start after winning its division in the Mingo Bay tournament in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Friday. Ryan Sussman's infield single drove in Kevin McDonnell in the top of the 11th inning to beat Johnsonville (S.C.), 5-4.

Taylor Wagner picked up the win by allowing seven hits and striking out five in 10 innings. In his previous start in the tourney, Wagner fanned eight in three innings of work during a 20-0 romp to pick up where he left off during a junior season in which he went 5-1 and whiffed 45 batters in 43 innings.

Boys Lacrosse: Penn Yan gets past Fairport 

Senior Matt Osgood's goal in the fourth quarter proved to be the winner as Penn Yan, ranked sixth in Class C by the New York State Sportswriters Association, edged Class A No. 9 Fairport, 6-5. Osgood and John Linnan each finished with two goals and one assist for the Mustangs (4-1), and Ethan Kamholtz stopped 13 shots.

Girls Lacrosse: New York schools crowd the top of the rankings

* Highly regarded Mount Hebron came up from Maryland and dropped a pair of games Saturday to Brighton, ranked No. 3 by the NYSSWA, and Class A No. 3 West Genesee.

Brighton registered a 12-5 win as Beatrice Conley scored four goals. West Genesee then followed with an 11-8 triumph after breaking to an 8-3 lead in the first half. Kellyn Savage, Morgan Corso, Karlyn Tupper and Maria DiFato scored two goals apiece.

* Canandaigua has ascended to No. 1 in the nation according to LaxPower.com. The Braves moved up when McDonogh (Md.) edged then-No. 1 St. Stephen & St. Agnes on Saturday, 10-9. Canandaigua split a pair of games against those schools last week.

Besides Canandaigua, Baldwinsville (seventh), Penfield (eighth), Brighton (ninth) and West Genesee (10th) are all in the top 10 to start the new week.

* Brittany Hunt scored five goals, including the 100th of her career, as Saugerties beat Monroe-Woodbury, 13-6. Alexa Perry and Erin Thornton added three goals apiece.

Basketball: New Yorkers duel at Jordan Brand Classic 

Russ Smith of Archbishop Molloy and Brandon Triche of Jamesville-DeWitt shared game MVP honors in the City vs. Suburbs game of the Jordan Brand Classic at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.

Smith scored a team-high 27 points on 10-for-17 shooting, leading the City team to a 129-120 win. Triche, who has signed to play for Syracuse next season, had 33 points and five rebounds in a losing cause.

Smith, who will attend South Kent (Conn.) next year with Rice standout James Stukes and Thomas Jefferson's Keith Spellman, led the CHSAA in scoring with 29.6 points per game.

John Schiano, who has written about high school sports in western and central New York for more than 25 years, covers New York for MaxPreps. He may be reached at johnschianosports@gmail.com .