West Genesee and Baldwinsville may not have seen the last of each other on the girls lacrosse field this spring.
Having split their two regular-season games, the teams are seemingly on a collision course leading up to one final confrontation that could decide everything: the Section III Class A championship, favorite status for the state tournament next month and even a mythical national title.
Six weeks after suffering its first loss in three years, West Genesee got revenge against Baldwinsville on Tuesday. The two-time defending New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class A champions rode Morgan Corso's hat trick to a 10-7 victory. Senior goalie Nicole Greco made 14 saves in a game in which the Wildcats never trailed.
Maria DiFato, West Genesee
File Photo by Alan Schwartz
There is no question both squads are loaded. Maria DiFato has scored 44 goals, Bre Hudgins 37 and Corso 34 for West Genesee. DiFato tops the squad with 26 assists, one more than Karlyn Tupper.
Greco has turned back 69.3 percent of opponents’ shots.
Kara Moschetti leads B’ville with 55 goals, followed by Quincey Spagnoletti with 51. Jennifer Fabian has rolled up 25 assists.
Baldwinsville downed West Genesee in their first meeting April 9, 9-8. Both teams are now 16-1.
The winner of the presumed West Genny-Baldwinsville rematch — Cicero-North Syracuse is regarded as a distant third among large schools in the Syracuse area — is by no means assured a state title because the Long Island rep will be waiting in the state semifinals. But with six teams from Sections VIII or XI ranked in the state’s top 12, the survivor will have endured a grueling week of games before the June 12 semifinals in Cortland.
More Girls Lacrosse: Does it count or not?
One of the strangest developments in recent history surfaced this week in Section III when athletic directors from the Onondaga League Liberty Conference had to clarify which games count as league contests.
With the final game of the regular season just two days away and division titles at stake, ADs admitted Wednesday that some coaches thought the schedule counted only the second time they played teams in their own division as league games.
ADs had to clarify that all games played against Liberty opponents are league games.
“I’ve been confused all season long,” first-year Westhill coach Theresa Masse told The Post-Standard. “Everyone should have been on the same page with this, and I have no idea why they aren’t.”
Cazenovia coach Mark Evans thought his team was 8-0 and heading to an almost certain American Division championship. Instead, he discovered his Lakers are 11-2 and trailing Westhill.
The root of the misunderstanding may be language contained in the Section III lacrosse handbook addressing long-standing criteria for determining tournament seeds. But Liberty ADs say they agreed a year ago that all games played against a Liberty opponent will be counted as league games. However, that was not communicated to all the coaches.
Boys Basketball: Stephenson still on hold
* Abraham Lincoln star senior guard Lance Stephenson and teammate Darwin Ellis will have to wait until at least June 29 to learn the outcome of their sexual assault case, which was adjourned this week by Judge Alexander Jeong in Brooklyn Criminal Court, The Daily News reported.
Attorney Alberto Ebanks repeated his stance that Stephenson is innocent and speculated the case could be resolved via a dismissal or plea bargain. Stephenson, accompanied by his parents, declined comment.
Stephenson and Ellis were charged with allegedly groping a female student, 17, outside school last Oct. 3.
* The NYSPHSAA boys semifinals and finals will remain in the Glens Falls Civic Center though 2013. The previous contract, approved in January 2007, was set to expire following next spring's championships, and no other communities made presentations to the basketball committee during its meetings last weekend.
The 2010 tournament semifinals and finals are slated for March 19-21. It will mark the event's 30th year in Glens Falls.
The Federation tournament contract also expires after the 2010 tournament. Binghamton is regarded as the most likely candidate to challenge Glens Falls' hold on that event.
Golf: Dinan’s time at Tappan Zee winds down
Dan Dinan's 31-year run as at Tappan Zee concludes Tuesday with the Rockland County championships. The 79-year-old Dinan, who compiled a 396-95-10 record in duals, is the longest-tenured educator and coach at Tappan Zee. He's the last member of the school's original 1960-61 staff and works as a substitute teacher there.
Dinan landed his first set of clubs in Easton, Pa., at the age of 12 while delivering newspapers.
"I walked up to a house and there was a bag of clubs sitting there with the garbage," Dinan told The Journal News. "I picked those clubs up, forgot all about delivering the papers and ran home with them."
* Pittsford Mendon eighth-grader Gavin Hall won the Section V championship with a 2-under-par 70 at Brook-Lea Country Club despite a broken ring finger on his right hand.
Tennis: Hamburg makes history
* Hamburg became the first Western New York school to sweep boys singles and doubles championships at the Section VI tournament according to records dating to 1977. Matt Kane, who won the singles title last year as a junior, teamed with younger brother Tim Kane, a seventh-grader, to capture the doubles crown while David Yovanoff won the singles championship.
The Hamburg reps cruised through four rounds without losing a set.
* Beacon boys tennis coach Dave Ryley won his 200th match with a 5-2 win over Walter Panas to wrap up a 9-7 season. Ryley started coaching in 1987.
Odds and ends
* Clarence leadoff batter Valerie Nappo homered on the first pitch of an 8-0 softball victory over Frontier. It was the third time this season leading off the game with a homer for Nappo, who has a school-record seven homers.
* Thor Miller, Joe Mancini, Dean Haussel and Matt Dunn homered in succession in the first inning for Miller Place in a 17-4 win over Sayville in the second round of the Section XI Class A baseball tournament.
* Suffern baseball standout Robbie Aviles was suspended for five games for violating the school's substance abuse policy by possessing chewing tobacco on school grounds, The Journal News reported. The junior pitcher (6-0, 0.70 ERA and 66 strikeouts in 40 innings) should be able to return for the first round of sectional play.
* John Lombardi has been promoted to varsity football coach at Midlakes, which has not had a winning season since 2000. He takes over for Chris Moyer.Lombardi coached at Red Jacket for two seasons before arriving at Midlakes in 2007.
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.
