Friday, March 1, 2013: Spackenkill advances with quadruple-OT victory

   Leading off today: Third-seeded Spackenkill advanced to the Section 9 boys Class B basketball final vs. Marlboro, but putting the semifinal in the rear-view mirror will be Job 1. Pure and simple, you can't help but keep thinking about Thursday's epic.

   Marc Horvath played the full 48 minutes and scored a career-high 27 points, including 14 after the end of the third quarter, as Spackenkill beat second-seeded James I. O'Neill 70-65 in four overtimes.

   "Never, never, never," 24th-year coach Terry Feeley said. "It was a knock-down, drag-out, grind-it-out game. We had a couple of seniors who didn't want to see their careers end."

   Justin Etts added 17 points and 11 steals for Spackenkill (13-7). Josh Riley had eight points and 23 rebounds in 47 minutes of action.

   "We showed some fight and I'm not sure we've seen that, day in and day out," Feeley told the Poughkeepsie Journal. "It wasn't a thing of beauty and both teams grinded it out. We showed a lot of heart and a lot of fight."

   Ford moves forward: St. John's-bound point guard Aaliyah Lewis scored 22 points as Bishop Ford defeated Christ the King 64-50 in the CHSAA Brooklyn/Queens Division I girls basketball semifinals Thursday.

   Christ the King is ranked sixth and Ford seventh in the latest New York State Sportswriters Association ratings.

   The Falcons will play the final against top-seeded Archbishop Molloy, a 69-58 winner over Bishop Loughlin.

   Junior Aaliyah Jones, returning from a two-game suspension, scored all 11 of her points in the first half of the win. Christ the King junior Sierra Calhoun, playing her second game since returning from tendinitis in both knees that kept her out for nearly a month, scored 16 points, and the Royals played without junior point guard Deja Johnson (broken nose).

   Coach disciplined: Cardozo boys basketball coach Ron Naclerio sat out Thursday's PSAL playoff win over Bronx JFK to begin a two-game suspension for tossing the Queens Borough runner-up plaque to the floor following the 57-54 loss to Bayside on Feb. 16.

   Naclerio learned of the punishment just hours before the 79-70 overtime win vs. JFK, The New York Daily News reported. He won't be allowed back until the semifinals on March 10, if the Judges advance.

   Familiar face coming back: Steve Fisher will be coaching football at General Brown once again. "I want to coach football, and there was no better place to do it than where I did for 43 years," he said.

   Fisher has a career record 253-128-2, with all but one

More N.Y. postseason coverage All sports • NYSSWA site for brackets of tournaments from the past and present seasons. Boys basketball • Status of the 11 sectional tournaments • Road to Glens Falls for scores and stats. • NYSPHSAA tourney brackets • Current state rankings. Girls basketball • Road to Troy for scores and stats. • NYSPHSAA tourney brackets • Current state rankings. Ice hockey • NYSSWA site for tournament brackets. • Current state rankings. Wrestling • 2013 state meet results: D-I | D-II • Final state rankings.

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win coming at General Brown. After leaving the Lions in February 2010 and taking a year off, Fisher had one-year stints at Alexandria (1-7) in 2011 and Thousand Islands (0-8) last season.

   He replaces third-year coach Tom Frears (25-5 record), who'll also relinquish his lacrosse job after the upcoming season. "It's a great position for him," Frears told the Watertown Daily Times. "He's got more time now that he's retired, he was a long time physical education teacher at the school, and he’s the one who helped build the program."

   The Lions lost to eventual champion Skaneateles in the Section 3 quarterfinals to finish 7-1 last fall.

   Invited to the big time: Irvington coach Gina Maher, the winningest coach in Section 1 girls basketball history, was named the District 2 Coach of the Year by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association and Russell Athletic this week and was also invited to serve as an assistant coach in the WBCA All-American game on April 6 at the New Orleans Arena.

   As fate would have it, she will be coaching against a star Section 1 player in that game: Ossining's Saniya Chong, who was named to the all-star game last month.