By John Schiano
MaxPreps.com
Hampton Bays junior swingman Bruno Cavallo suffered a fractured skull Friday in the opening moments of a boys’ basketball game against Patchogue-Medford and is done for the season.
Cavallo fell to the floor hard while attempting to block a shot and was diagnosed with a hairline fracture to the skull and slight bleeding on the brain at Stony Brook University Medical Center, the player's father told Newsday.
Joe Cavallo said doctors did not expect to need to perform surgery but it was Bruno Cavallo’s second serious injury since the end of his sophomore year. He suffered a concussion and was hospitalized for three days as the result of a summer-league game collision.
Cavallo, 16, had been averaging 22.8 points a game for the Baymen, including a 34-point performance in his season debut.
More Basketball
* Newburgh Free Academy beat defending state Class AA champion Bishop Maginn, 71-56, as Michael McLeod and Danon Cousar posted 17 points and eight rebounds apiece. Marcus Henderson added 10 points and 10 assists to offset 23 points from Maginn's Taran Buie.
* Highly regarded Buffalo Nichols posted a 64-51 triumph at St. Joe's as Will Regan contributed 20 points and 16 rebounds.
* Robby Seyler became the all-time scoring leader at Lewiston-Porter and tied the single-game mark as well with 42 points in an 81-75 win against Niagara Catholic. Seyler (1,390 points) broke Rich King’s career record set in 1961. He matched Steve Murphy's one-game output from 1974.
* In Section III, Bishop Ludden's Pat Donnelly earned career win No. 400 with a 66-56 victory over East Syracuse-Minoa. He's been in coaching for 25 seasons, the last 21 (with eight sectional titles) with the Gaelic Knights.
* Pearl River’s Lorraine Moylan began the week tied for the most girls’ basketball coaching victories in Section I history. She is 447-121, matching the victory total of former Albertus Magnus and Spring Valley coach Lou Kliewe.
Wrestling: Spencerport Wins U-E Duals Crown
Spencerport ran its winning streak to 51 matches by defeating Monroe-Woodbury, 40-16, in the final to win the Union-Endicott Duals wrestling championship on Saturday.
Spencerport received a first-round bye and advanced to the title match with victories by scores of 36-20 against Wantagh and 43-18 against Waverly. Rangers 145-pound junior Paul Morabito scored a 1-0 victory over Wantagh's Paul Liguori, a two-time Division 1 state champ (96 pounds as a freshman, 112 as a sophomore), who placed third in New York last year at 125.
Morabito won his other matches by a decision and a pin.
"I've seen him beat a New Jersey state champion. He has a history of this," Spencerport coach Bill Jacoutot told the Democrat and Chronicle. "He just hasn't gotten to the state championship podium. This year, it's going to happen, barring unforeseen illness or injury, but I don't think those things are going to happen."
The Rangers got two pins apiece from 215-pound state champ Paul Glover, 119-pounder J.P. Hayden and Joe Inzana at 152.
Fairport earned third place in the 14-team field by downing Waverly, 38-25. The Red Raiders host Spencerport in a dual meet on Jan. 14.
Spencerport began the week by winning its own 43rd annual Teike/Bernabi Invitational against a deep field that saw six 2008 state champions place first: Ian Paddock (Warsaw, 135 pounds), Zach Clemente (LaSalle Institute, 145), Ryan Leblanc (Morrisville-Eaton, 160), Austin Meys (Shenendehowa, 171), Glover and Ken Altarac (LaSalle, heavyweight).
By the way, Fredonia 96-pounder Carlene Sluberski became the first female champion in the history of the Spencerport event.
Ice Hockey: No. 1 West Genesee Shocked At Home
Upon further review, perhaps we should have seen this one coming.
But Gates Chili’s 3-1 victory Saturday at West Genesee, the top-ranked Division 1 team in the state, rates as a surprise under any circumstance, even if the Spartans, who began the season 1-3-1, still have not surrendered more than four goals in a game.
Freshman Pat Egan scored twice to give him team highs of seven goals and 12 points this winter as the rather young Spartans (5-3-3) extended their unbeaten streak to six games.
Eighth-grader Jake Mattiole's first career goal midway through the first period gave the Spartans a 1-0 lead and they were up by 2-1 after two periods. Gates Chili killed off a 5-on-3 power play to start the third period and Egan scored into an empty net with 13 seconds to go.
Gates Chili sophomore T.J. Noce finished with 17 saves in goal.
West Genesee, which dropped a 3-2 decision to Massena in triple overtime in the 2008 state Division 1 final, had started the season with 12 straight wins and a 68-8 advantage in goals.
Football: Former Co-Player of the Year ‘Serious’ After Stabbing
Syracuse police were continuing their investigation into the weekend stabbing of former high school football star Daquan Grobsmith but had made no arrests as of Sunday.
As a scholastic running back, Grobsmith shared NYSSWA Class C player of the year honors in 2007 with quarterback Connor Sweeney after they led Bishop Ludden to the 2007 NYSPHSAA Class C championship at the Carrier Dome. He ran for 1,788 yards as a senior – including 369 in a single game – and finished his career with 3,987 yards on the ground.
Police said Grobsmith, 19, was involved in an altercation around 1:30 a.m. Saturday inside a bar. He was stabbed once in the stomach and twice in the chest and transported to University Hospital in Syracuse, where he underwent surgery and was initially listed as 'critical.' His status was upgraded to serious condition Sunday,
Cross Country: Whelan Makes It All the Way Back
Hamburg senior Joe Whelan, who capped a comeback from a broken foot in the spring and knee injury over the summer by placing ninth in the Foot Locker Nationals in San Diego last month, has been selected boys runner of the year by the New York State Sportswriters Association.
Whelen had no training base to speak of before Labor Day but improved steadily from a 36th-place showing at the East Aurora Invitational and 20th at the McQuaid Invitational in September to place first in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class A championships at Sunken Meadow State Park.
The other class athletes of the year are Fayetteville-Manlius junior Alex Hatz, Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake sophomore Otis Obriaco, Greenwich freshman Austin Lane and Wayne eighth-grader Colin Kerr.
Football: Penfield Goes With Romano
Section V football tends to be a very tight community, as is evidenced by the latest coaching change.
Steve Romano has been selected as the new coach at Penfield, pending approval from the school board. Romano was 15-3 at Webster Schroeder in 2004-05 as the heir to the enormously successful Tony Bianchi before returning to the St. John Fisher College staff, where he also worked from 2001-03.
Romano faces an enormous undertaking with the Patriots, 2-7 and 0-8 the last two seasons after going 6-3 in 2006 under Chris Battaglia, previously also an assistant in Webster and now back at his alma mater at Rochester Aquinas as head coach - where Bianchi is AD.
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.
