As the Section III football previews continue, we now look at Class B, which has become quite intimate due to the enrollment shifts of recent years.
Now with Holland Patent in Class C, it's down to 10 teams, eight of which get to be in the playoffs - nice deal, if you're part of it.
But "smaller" doesn't exactly mean worse, as we saw in 2008. Oneida, having finally climbed to the top, just kept going, the only Section III champ to make it past the regional round and all the way to the state finals before Rye held them off.
Expecting that again from Bill Carinci's crew might be quite a stretch...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: Section III, football, Class B preview

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Now in our set of Section III football outlooks, we move to Class A, where there hasn't been much doubt about where the power has shifted - at least if you believe recent playoff results.
Each of the last two seasons, the championship game has involved two teams from the National division - Carthage beating New Hartford in 2007, the Spartans finishing on top over Camden one year ago.
In fact, five of the last six champions have National roots, East Syracuse-Minoa providing the lone American division exception in 2006.
On the surface, this means nothing for 2009...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: Section III, Class A football, preview

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When it comes to college football circa 2009, it’s difficult to give the national scene any serious thought, because odds are it won’t turn out well.
Take 2008, and the latest in a long string of BCS travesties. This one involved once-defeated Oklahoma getting into the title game instead of once-defeated Texas, even though Bevo beat Boomer Sooner in their mid-October State Fair gathering. Not to mention USC wanted in.
And trumping them all was Utah. Undefeated Utah. As in nobody beat them, including Alabama in a one-sided Sugar Bowl. All that was good for was nice consolation prizes, including no...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: College football, 2009 season outlook

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On the day before the Section III football season kicks off, we conclude the previews by going to Class AA, where the biggest schools collide and the level of play continues to increase.
True, the state championships won by improbable entries from Auburn (2006) and West Genesee (2007) were not followed up last fall, but the playoffs sure proved exciting.
Three of the four first-round games were decided by one or two points. The semifinal between West Genesee and Liverpool went into double overtime. And Henninger, who barely survived Cicero-North Syracuse in the quarterfinals, ended up with the banner by using lots of big plays and forced turnovers to dethrone the Wildcats.
Since then, the leagues have shuffled again...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: Section III, 2009 football preview, Class AA

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They saved the lowest-scoring game of the first weekend of Section III football for the end.
Still, it provided a dramatic ending, as London Odister's 67-yard, catch-and-run sprint off a medium-range pass from Kelvin Amparo with less than 90 seconds rescued, for Fowler, a 6-3 win over Jamesville-DeWitt late Sunday afternoon in the Carrier Dome.
So concluded a 48-hour whirl around the gridirons that featured all kinds of shutouts (10, to be precise) and a lot of pre-season favorites flexing proverbial muscles.
The biggest Class AA development, though, involved an injury. CBA star Bryant Moore went to the sideline late in the first quarter against Auburn, having suffered a knee injury on a punt return...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: Section III, football, opening weekend

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By this point, just about everyone in Section III boys soccer has taken a turn on the field, even if you'll see less of them this fall.
As with other team sports, the schedule has taken a budgetary hit, with 16 regular-season games instead of 18. That might only keep a tournament or two from taking place, but it still adds urgency to each regular-season game, for they'll have a greater impact in how the playoff brackets are shaped.
Short or long schedule, though, it's still a great time to be a soccer fan in Central New York. Hamilton comes off winning a state championship in Class D, and Baldwinsville and Fabius-Pompey both reached the state final four.
The Bees are going after a third consecutive sectional title in '09 - but it won't be easy...

CATEGORY: Soccer (Football)

TAGS: Section III, boys soccer, outlook

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Yes, you likely noticed the nip in the air, a bit of a chilly breeze, a few leaves turning a lighter color. Autumn is close - but girls soccer is already here.
A week of game action has passed, enough time for a cursory glance at the scene and some very brief opinions formed from them.
Class AA belonged to Baldwinsville a season ago, a senior-heavy cast of Bees overcoming years of near-misses and going all the way to the state final four before eventual champion John Jay/East Fishkill stopped them.
To expect a repeat without the likes of Nicole Close, Quincey Spagnoletti, Casey Chiesa and Jen Fabian might be a stretch, even with the emergence of the fabulous Firenze sisters - sophomore Jackie and freshman Emma...

CATEGORY: Soccer (Football)

TAGS: Section III, girls soccer, preview

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It did not take too long for Section III field hockey to heat up and yield some big storylines - less than a week, in fact.
On a fall Thursday at Morrisville-Eaton, the Warriors, bent on reclaiming the Class D title Little Falls took from them a year ago, built a big 3-0 lead on Canastota, then held off a fierce Raiders rally to prevail 3-2.
There was a bigger crowd than usual, with lots of ex-Warrior players in attendance, and for good reason. The win marked head coach Patti Vaughn's 400th, just the fifth coach in state history to reach that high mark.
While building a powerhouse at M-E, all Vaughn has done is win 12 sectional titles, the Warriors tied with Cooperstown for the most...

CATEGORY: Hockey

TAGS: Section III, field hockey, preview

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To be sure, in the second weekend of the Section III football season, some powerful teams kept on chugging. But that didn't happen everywhere, only adding to the season's intrigue.
By far, the biggest example might come in Class D. As far as contenders go here, Dolgeville ranks right with, if not above, Death and Taxes - something you can absolutely count on.
But maybe not in 2009. First there was the Blue Devils' last-minute escape against Herkimer, something that Magician fans are still fuming about. Then on Saturday, at friendly Bill Bynon Field, Dolgeville met Utica-Notre Dame, the same Jugglers that Westmoreland 44-12. Easy pickings, right?
Well, no. UND 12, Dolgeville 7, and suddenly the Jugglers could have control of D East...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: Football, second weekend, wrap-up

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No wonder it felt so subdued Saturday, despite the big football game at Sunnycrest Field. The happy heart of Henninger High School had gone out.
Gone, far too soon, is Joe Mazella, just 51 when he passed away Saturday morning at his home in Eastwood.
For all the titles he held - important ones like husband, father of three, coach, teacher, assistant principal - what could safely be said, above anything else, was that Joe Mazella was a Henninger man...

CATEGORY: Basketball

TAGS: Joe Mazella, Henninger, basketball

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No doubt, you saw the advertisements on TV, or the preview clips on YouTube, or the articles in every major media outlet. For months, the momentum and buzz built up, all in anticipation for the great event.
At 09/09/09, it came out, in bright shiny black packages. The faithful went to the stores and forked over hundreds of dollars, either for the CDs or for an interactive video game.
And all for a band that broke up nearly 40 years ago.
How remarkable – no, make that fab, as in Fab Four, as in Beatles, still the most remarkable musical phenomenon the world has ever witnessed...

CATEGORY: Music

TAGS: Beatles, influence, impact, enduring power

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CATEGORY: General Sports

TAGS: High school, budget crisis, sports

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Things move fast in the local high-school football scene. In fact, they're halfway through the Class C and D regular season, so we'll be talking playoffs before any leaves fall.
Yet there already was a playoff feel in some of the match-ups in the third week of the regular season, and perhaps a grand arrival at Alibrandi Stadium, where a Class AA classic brewed.
Baldwinsville was supposed to be fodder at CBA's Homecoming, especilaly when it fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter. Maybe previous versions of the Bees would have folded.
But not this year's model...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: Section III football, week 3, analysis

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Now we've had a couple of weeks where the cross country runners in Section III have hit the trails in actual races, so there's some results to analyze and discuss.
We're fortunate to have some of the best running in the entire country. Some of it is due to great terrain. Some of it is weather, for competitors have to deal with all four seasons, from August heat to November snows, and must be versatile and tough to master it all.
And great coaches help, too, from Bill Aris to Jack Reed to Rick Nastasi to dozens of other fine mentors. Here, good runners become something special, and it happens on a yearly basis.
It's already been a memorable 2009 before anyone had a single race...

CATEGORY: Running

TAGS: Section III, cross country, overview

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When people talk of the Plains, they likely had western Kansas in mind. The landscape is miles and miles of flat farmland, wheat crops bristling in the winds that blow oven-hot in July and freezer-cold in January.
Aside from farming, the proud, humble folks of this land, situated in the absolute center of the continental United States, do two things well – raise their kids, and play football. No, make that really good football.
While at the Carrier Dome a couple of weeks ago for the Kickoff Classic, a colleague, perhaps knowing my penchant for books, slipped a copy of “Our Boys” into our hands. Sure, okay, I thought, another tale of high-school football. What’s the big deal?
About 265 pages later, I understood the big deal...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: Smith Center, Kansas, football, book, Joe Drape

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So we're now in September, and we're supposed to be riled up because the baseball post-season is near. But it's been tough to find much excitement.
Other than the American League Central race, where Detroit is trying to hold off Minnesota, just about everything is settled - the Yankees, Red Sox and Angels making up the rest of the AL field, the Phillies, Cardinals, Dodgers and Rockies in the National League mix. Lots of haves. Few have-nots.
Surprises? Precious few, really, and all in the NL, where St. Louis, even with Albert Pujols, wasn't supposed to win the Central, and Colorado was in the basement until Jim Tracy took over in June and completely turned things around...

CATEGORY: Baseball

TAGS: Major League Baseball, playoffs, teams

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Has ANY good news come out of the National Hockey League since Pittsburgh's Penguins went into Detroit and snatched Lord Stanley's Cup in that epic Game 7 three and a half months ago?
The situation in the players' union is bad enough. Paul Kelly, who had brought sanity after decades of corruption and bad negotiating, was forced out of his job as executive director, maybe because he was too friendly with management for some hard-liners.
Whether union reps were forced into the ouster, or acted on their own behalf, it sure looks like the first step toward another labor clash like the one that took away the 2004-05 season...

CATEGORY: Hockey

TAGS: Phoenix Coyotes, Wayne Gretzky, hockey,

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Really, there was just one way to approach Friday night's football showdown between unbeaten Baldwinsville and unbeaten Liverpool at Pelcher-Arcaro Stadium - to tell the full story.
What follows is a timeline of the night - the sights, the sounds, the emotions...
5:15 p.m. - Arrival at the stadium. One had to be here real early to get a real good parking spot. And sure enough, a few diehards are already in the bleachers.
5:30 - The teams start to warm up and the masses start to arrive...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: Baldwinsville, football, Liverpool

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Well, they thought they were done with big, huge, mega-important football games in Baldwinsville. But they can't even get a week to enjoy the CBA-Liverpool exacta.
Going into last Friday's showdown between the Bees and Warriors, the consensus was that the winner would be the undisputed Class AA favorite.
Turns out that, even with the 27-14 payback for last season's Liverpool double dip, B'ville is still staring at a first-place showdown next weekend, against the AA-1 contender nobody expected.
That would be Cicero-North Syracuse...

CATEGORY: Football (American)

TAGS: Section III, football, fourth week, recap

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Look outside, and you may swear it's already the gloom of late October or early November, when soccer championships get decided in this part of the country.
Alas, we are just midway through the Section III regular season on both the boys and girls sides. And if it's this raw now, are we going to be blanketed in the white stuff earlier than normal?
Okay, too frightening a thought to ponder. Better, I suppose, to just see where we are, and what might yet happen.
Given all the parts it had to replace, perhaps it was inevitable that Baldwinsville, in the Class AA boys ranks, would give up its favorite role.
What is surprising, a bit, is to see just how much unbeaten CNS and unbeaten F-M have separated themselves from the pack...

CATEGORY: Soccer (Football)

TAGS: Section III, soccer, halfway update

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So much in the National Hockey League has gone wrong since Pittsburgh stunned Hockeytown in Game 7, snatching the Stanley Cup from the Red Wings’ hands and possibly proclaiming the birth of a new ice dynasty.
From the Phoenix mess (still in court) to the ouster of a congenial players’ union director, this league, which had done so well (for once) since the 2004-05 lockout, seems destined on a course to more chaos and labor pain.
Until that happens, though, we’d be best served by enjoying the game itself over the next eight months or so. Here’s a look at how each division stacks up.
Northeast – Boston is ready to end its 38-year Cup drought with a deep, talented roster and Tim Thomas ready to settle in as the league’s best goaltender...

CATEGORY: Hockey

TAGS: NHL, season, preview

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