1. As the last full week of the boys
basketball regular season started, Corcoran was still undefeated, at
16-0, but would put that mark on the line Tuesday night at West Genesee,
who pushed the Cougars to overtime early in January. Since then, the
Wildcats have also lost to Henninger, Nottingham, and Baldwinsville the
night before it faced Corcoran. Meanwhile, in Class A it’s a battle
royal for the top playoff seeds, with Whitesboro and J-D both 15-2 going
into this week and the Red Rams knowing it has to host a Central Square
side that’s 13-2 starting the week and beat J-D earlier this season.
And where to put Bishop Grimes, who’s won 10 of 11 but whose only loss
in this stretch came to Bishop Ludden, who it faces again this week.
2.
The battle for the boys basketball Class C top seed took a big turn
late last week when state no. 2-ranked (but short-handed) Cooperstown
took its first loss of the season to Holland Patent. And that came right
before Monday night’s game that pitted the Hawkeyes against 15-1 Utica
Academy of Science, and the Atoms won it, 70-56, avenging its only loss
of the season and perhaps rising to the top seed while handing
Cooperstown its second straight loss in the wake of a 16-0 start. Now
UAS can still push for the top seed alongside Weedsport, who also was
16-1 to start the week. There’s also LaFayette, defending champion
Tully, West Canada and Oriskany all lined up amid the deepest pool of
area title contenders.
3. The quest for an
undefeated regular season for the Skaneateles boys basketball team got
thwarted last Tuesday at Bishop Ludden, but even here the Lakers were
close until the final seconds against the Gaelic Knights, who outside of
West Genesee and Corcoran might be the strongest Class AA side.
Lowville, 15-1 going into the week, could yet snag the top seed from the
Lakers. It’s quite a crowd at the top of Class D, too, since no less
than five teams – LaFargeville, Lyme, Hamilton, McGraw and DeRuyter –
have similar records heading down the homestretch, and because they are
so close in overall records, whoever emerges with the top seed here
might have a major advantage overall.
4. Maybe
we need to reconfigure Class A girls basketball. J-D, who lost to a New
Hampshire team last week and went to overtime before beating South
Jefferson Monday night, might see its long reign will get a serious
challenge not just from Bishop Ludden, who has won 11 in a row, but also
New Hartford, with freshman Kaia Henderson capable of taking over any
game. A surprise came in Class AA last week when C-NS surrenderedd a
double-digit fourth-quarter lead and lost to Baldwinsville on a
last-second shot by Sydney Huhtala, but the Northstars won its next two
games and the Bees were smashed by West Genesee later in the week,
perhaps clearing the Wildcats toward another sectional playoff top
seed.
5. A pair of recent losses, including
one to Whitesboro, might deny Oneida the Class B top seed in girls
basketball, given how well the likes of Westhill and South Jefferson
were playing in the last month, and there’s also Syracuse Academy of
Science at 12-4 going into the week. After an impressive 68-45 win over
LaFayette last week, Weedsport moved to 17-0, maintaining its no. 2
state rankinga as it saw Cassi Carroll pass 1,000 career points and
inched closer to an undefeated regular season. Copenhagen is tracking
toward the Class D top seed with its 15-1 record, while two other
contenders met last Saturday and Madison got the best of it, edging
Brookfield 43-40, though those two could meet again.
6.
The wrestling sectional tournaments began last weekend with home teams
winning three times. West Genesee did so in Class AA to dethrone
J-D/CBA, while in Class B Central Valley Academy easily prevailed to
follow up its second-place finish in the NYSPHSAA Dual Meet a week
earlier. And General Brown won the Class C sectional tournament at home.
As expected, Fulton breezed to the Class A title at Whitesboro, while
Beaver River brought the Class D championship home from Cooperstown. It
all leads to sectional Division I (large school) and Division II (small
school) championships at SRC Arena this weekend, with only the winners
guaranteed spots in the Feb. 22-23 state championships in Albany.
7.
Plenty happened in ice hockey, nothing more impressive than what state
Division II no. 2-ranked Cortland-Homer did last Saturday, handing state
Division I no. 3-ranked Syracuse its first defeat of the season by a
7-3 margin, this after beating Oswego and Auburn earlier in the week and
before a big regular-season finale where the Golden Eagles challenge
state no. 1-ranked Skaneateles, the two sides having tied 4-4 back in
December. The Lakers come off another 4-4 tie against Whitesboro late
last week. In Division I, West Genesee handled Baldwinsville 5-1 last
week to avenge its playoff defeat of a year ago, while F-M got a 2-1
road win at Rome Free Academy.
8. They held
the Section III girls hockey championships last week, and again
Skaneateles won it. In the semifinals, the Lakers blanked Oswego 8-0,
but the real surprise came a night later when Ithaca lost at home 4-2 to
Clinton. Clearly the Lakers worried about facing Ithaca in the finals
since the Little Red beat them 1-0 in mid-January. Instead, in Sunday’s
title game a trio of second-period power play goals helped Skaneateles
beat Clinton 6-3 to reach the state “Frozen Four” for the third year in a
row. A two-time state champion (including 2017), the Lakers go to
Buffalo’s HarborCenter to face Plattsburgh in Friday night’s state
semifinal, with the championship game taking place Saturday night.
9.
In the girls bowling sectional tournament that took place Sunday at
Flamingo Bowl in Liverpool, it was Rome Free Academy pulling away from
C-NS to take the Division I (large school) and Class A championships,
while in Division II (small schools) Camden edged VVS for the team
title, with the Blue Devils joining RFA as they will both compete in the
state team tournament at Strike-N-Spare Lanes early next month. Despite
the team defeat, VVS’s Mackenzie O’Herien led all individuals with the
best series of 1,320 and the top game of 253, too. This all gets
repeated next Sunday at Utica’s Pin-O-Rama, where the boys bowling
sectional team tournament will determine similar honors.
10.
In various league championship indoor track and field meets, there was
the OHSL championships where, in Division 1, the Cazenovia boys and
Westhill girls prevailed, while in Division 2 it was the Hannibal boys
and Tully girls finishing on top. Clinton swept both Center State
Conference meets while, in the Tri-Valley League, Rome Free Academy won
both Colonial divisions, with the VVS girls and Camden boys winning in
the Pioneer divisions. That leads to the Section III championships this
week, with Class AA and A teams going back to SRC Arena, but Class B, C
and D teams making their way to Utica College’s Hutton Dome, where the
state qualifier takes place the following week.
