Best In Upstate: H.S. title streaks fall during exciting championship weekend
John Moriello, who has been an ardent follower and commentator on New York high school sports for decades, is writing a weekly column called "Best In Upstate," which is designed to fly above all of the state sectional borders. You can reach John at nysswa@gmail.com or @nysswa on Twitter. He oversees the New York State Sportswriters Association web page of high school rankings.
At this juncture of the fall high school sports season a year ago, we marveled at the continued success of Fayetteville-Manlius in girls cross country and Lakeland in field hockey while wondering how soccer could go about cleaning up a mess.
Fast-forward to 2018 and note that two great winning streaks have come to a close and soccer observers are no longer fit to be tied over an image problem ... at least for the moment.
Fayetteville-Manlius had its streak of 12 straight New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships snapped last weekend at Sunken Meadow State Park on Long Island, where Saratoga Springs pulled out a one-point victory.
The outcome marked a reversal of fate for F-M, which had scored a one-point victory over Liverpool the previous week in the Section 3 championships for the right to advance.
The string of 12 straight state titles was unprecedented in the NYSPHSAA, with a run of 13 girls soccer championships over 16 season by Cold Spring Harbor beginning in 1985 probably coming closest. Christ the King's run of 11 straight girls basketball titles beginning in 1990 remains the gold standard at the Federation level.
Lakeland's nine-year skein in Class B field hockey came to an end via a 1-0 loss to Garden City in the final at Williamsville North. Lakeland hadn't lost a regular-season or playoff contest to a New York opponent since 2008.
While the close losses were the topic of discussion in cross country and field hockey, the subject of tie games in soccer championships slipped off the radar this week. A year after three of 10 boys or girls finals ended in ties that resulted in co-champions being crowned, all 10 classes played down to a single winner this time around.
Though various columnists railed at the NYSPHSAA the week after the finals, there was only minimal discussion after the 2017 playoffs over whether soccer needed to rethink its policy to not proceed to penalty-kick shootouts in the event of championship games remaining tied at the end of overtime. Dodging the give-them-all-a-trophy dilemma this time around likely takes any substantial debate about a rules change off the table for at least a couple of years.
One of the tied finals in 2017 was the boys Class D contest between Chazy and Mount Academy. They had a rematch last weekend that resulted in Chazy making a bit of history. By winning 3-0, the Section 7 school earned its ninth state championship, breaking a tie with Pittsford Mendon for the most boys soccer trophies.
All nine Chazy championships have come under coach Rob McAuliffe, who has also taken three other teams to the finals.
The right decision
Word came down late Thursday night that the Federation cross country meet scheduled for Saturday was being canceled. The decision was both disappointing and correct because the Bowdoin Park course in Poughkeepsie had already taken a beating in recent weeks and conditions were being made worse by the late-week storm.
The Federation meet was called off halfway through the 1987 event hosted by Fayetteville-Manlius, and there have been at least three instances since when the event was held even though conditions were borderline brutal.
Had the meet been run as scheduled this weekend, it's entirely possible some teams would have withdrawn their runners out of safety concerns with qualifiers for Nike Cross Nationals and the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships coming up.
It will be interesting to see whether Nike ends up having to move next weekend's qualifying for the national finals to another venue. Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx would be the logical alternative, but Foot Locker will be using that layout the same day that Nike's qualifier is supposed to take place.
Football follies
Though only Skaneateles vs. Batavia in Class B pairs two unbeaten teams, the 20 NYSPHSAA football semifinalists this weekend have a combined record of 195-16.
Contrast that with the Catholic High School Football League, consisting of private schools in the metropolitan New York area. Their marquee championship game this weekend pits Archbishop Stepinac (6-4) against Cardinal Hayes (4-4). The winner earns a date with St. Francis (5-6) from Buffalo's Monsignor Martin Association for the state Catholic High School Athletic Association championship later this month.
How does that happen? Start with the fact that those leagues have relatively few teams and lots of parity.
St. Francis took three losses to Pennsylvania schools, dropped a wild 55-49 shootout to Aquinas and suffered close league losses to St. Joseph's and Canisius that were avenged in the playoffs.
Downstate, injuries were a factor as Stepinac endured a four-game losing streak that dropped the Crusaders' record to 1-4. As for Hayes, most teams in the state had two or even three games under their belt by the time the Cardinals opened their regular season. That came about because the school was unable to line up an opening-week opponent and had its first scheduled game canceled when their opponent backed out.
Make no mistake, the Catholic schools generally play some very good football. But it's a tough sell this year trying to convince people that their best teams are the equal of or superior to the NYSPHSAA's best.
Next week
There have been 25 years of New York State Public High School Athletic Association football championships conducted at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse. The pile of game programs in the Moriello Man Cave strongly suggests that I've seen at least one final in 17 of those years.
I'll spend the next few days plowing through recaps of all the title contests over the quarter of a century to pull together the list of the 10 most memorable finals.