Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012: Top-ranked New York Mills falls vs. Sackets Harbor

   Leading off today: It's rare to see a regular-season matchup between teams ranked in the top two spots in the state, but we got one Saturday in Class D boys basketball.

   Zach D'Alessandro scored a team-high 23 points -- with 19 coming in the second half -- to lead Sackets Harbor (12-0), ranked No. 2 by the NYSSWA, to a 68-63 victory over No. 1 New York Mills in non-league action.

   Matt Welch scored a game-high 30 for New York Mills (10-2), the defending NYSPHSAA tournament champion.

   “It’s a day players and fans will long remember,’’ Patriots coach Jeff Robbins told his players afterward. “But they don’t give you a trophy for being No. 1 in January. We still have work to do and goals to meet.’’

   More Saturday basketball: Reggie Agbeko and Kyle Briggs scored 16 apiece for Class A No. 15 Buffalo St. Joe's in a 67-58 win over Class AA No. 5 Aquinas. The pair also held Little Irish Division I signees Phil Valenti (10) and Christian White (9) to a combined 19 points.

   Aquinas with without forward Jarron Jones, who was witnessing Notre Dame's victory over Syracuse University during a football recruiting visit.

   "We played 32 minutes of hard basketball. We shut down their two best players — held them to nine and 10 points," Marauders coach Mark Simon told The Buffalo News. "We kept the pressure on and didn't let them penetrate. We did what we wanted to do for a change."

   Record performance: It's just a matter of time now before a high-schooler goes sub-one in the 500 meters in indoor track.

   PSAL star Strymar Livingston, a senior at Christopher Columbus, set the national high school record in the 500-meter run Saturday in the New Balance Games at the Armory, winning in 1:01.68. He destroyed the 1984 mark of 1:02.40 set by Michael Greene of Boston in 1984.

   Livingston was pushed hard by St. Peter’s (N.J.) Prep senior Najee Glass, who clocked 1:02.16. When the two faced off in the 2011 New Balance Games, Glass seemingly broke Greene’s all-time record -- only to have the mark nullified when it was ruled that he had run out of his lane.

   Coaching milestone: Pine Valley girls basketball coach Tim Nobles, who already has six NYSPHSAA championships and 11 Section 6 titles to his credit, posted his 500th career win with a 53-29 victory over Forestville on Friday.

   Nobles is 500-131 in a career that began in 1980. He took a three-year break from coaching from 1996-1999.

   More Friday action: Sam Palermo scored 17 points and grabbed eight rebounds as McQuaid shocked Class AA No. 7 Rochester East 53-39 in Section 5 basketball action. Palermo was 6-for-6 from the free-throw line in the final three minutes for the Knights (5-8).

   Calling all coaches: The deadline for nominations for Mr. Basketball and Miss Basketball -- arguably the state's most prestigious award in any sport -- is coming up Jan. 31.

   Varsity coaches as well as credentialed sports reporters in New York State can nominate seniors who meet the

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criteria that can be found on the Basketball Coaches Association of New York website.

   Even if you're convinced that there's an overwhelming favorite for the award, just making the cut as a finalist would look pretty good on the resume of an outstanding senior player.

   Interest soaring: The list of Division I colleges showing interest in Ossining star junior Saniya Chong continues to expand rapidly. UConn and North Carolina are the latest to contact coach Dan Ricci about her, The Journal News reported last week. Ohio State, Louisville and Virginia Tech are among the schools that have already offered.

   Seifried retiring: Veteran Section 3 field hockey coach Wendy Seifried is retiring from the sport as well as teaching at the end of the school year.

   Seifried, 55, a physical education teacher at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill, coached at Mount Markham before moving over to V-V-S. She went 378-112-85 in 27 years at V-V-S and 33 overall and captured seven Section 3 championships. The Red Devils won 14 league sportsmanship awards and earned NYSPHSAA scholar-athlete recognition every year since that program began.

   “The hardest part about it was telling my team,” she told The Observer-Dispatch. “I don’t know if they cried, because I was crying.”

   Coming Monday: I've got a bunch of football notes that have been piling up over the last few days, including somewhat surprising news on the destination for a standout senior.