Wednesday, May 22, 2013: Daggett retiring after impressive Staten Island run

   Bob Daggett is moving from Staten Island to Florida to begin his retirement and will not return as coach at Curtis in the PSAL next season, The Advance reported Wednesday.

   Daggett spent the past two seasons at Curtis after a great run at CHSAA power St. Peter’s, which closed in the spring of 2011.

   Daggett compiled a 459-152 record in 23 seasons at St. Peter’s with 16 straight Staten Island CHSAA championships. Though he was not officially listed as the head coach at Curtis, he guided that team to records of 21-9 and 24-3 in his two seasons.

   "We (he and his wife Pat) have the opportunity to retire on the beach in Venice, Fla., and we are looking forward to a little slower way of life... but we will miss the girls," he told the paper.

   Streak over: One of lacrosse's most impressive runs of success came to a close Tuesday when sophomore Brian Willetts (already committed to North Carolina) scored six goals and senior Brian Balkam made 19 saves as Smithtown East defeated West Islip 12-4 in the Suffolk County Class A quarterfinals.

   That snapped the Lions' streak of nine Section 11 championships and 11 straight appearances in the Suffolk County final. Smithtown East is ranked 13th and West Islip 23rd this week by the New York State Sportswriters Association.

   "This is huge for our program and huge for our town to beat West Islip twice in one season,'' Balkam told Newsday.

   Nassau progress: Garden City rolled into its eighth straight Section 8 Class B boys lacrosse final with a 12-3 win over Long Beach. The Trojans, defending NYSPHSAA state champions, have won the last seven Nassau County titles.

   “We don’t take this for granted,” junior Justin Guterding, a Duke-bound attackman, told Patch.com after finishing with four goals and three assists.

   Thursday's big event: All eyes will be on Section 2 baseball Thursday afternoon as Queensbury's Charlie Peltz tries to make a little state history.

   Peltz will be bidding for his fourth straight no-hitter as Queensbury hosts Amsterdam in a sectional quarterfinal.

   Gold standard of goal scoring: Bishop Timon-St. Jude junior Connor Fields broke the presumed state boys lacrosse record for goals in a season Tuesday with six tallies during a 20-1 victory over Nichols in the Monsignor Martin Association semifinals.

   Fields raised his season total to 112 goals, with at least one and possibly tow games to play. Billy Kurisko of Nanuet scored 108 goals in 1986.

   Fields also assisted on five goals in the romp.

   New NY-NJ grid game? I mentioned last month that the Upstate-Downstate football all-star game for seniors -- a square peg in a round hole during its brief existance -- is

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toast, replaced by an underclassmen game slated for Onondaga Community College.

   Now, it appears that the New York-New Jersey all-star game has been revived in some form. I stumbled across a tweet last week indicating notifications have gone out to 50 New York players from the class of 2013 that they have been selected for a NY/NJ contest June 29 at Palisades Park County Field in New Jersey.

   Details are a bit sparse, though there is a slightly-better-than-skeletal website for the event.

   It looks like National Underclassmen Combines is operating and/or sponsoring the affair. Hit me up with an email if you know more.

   Following up: I missed it over the weekend, but Mary Cain broke yet another U.S. school girl record in distance running, clocking 4:04.62 in the 1,500 meters at the USATF Oxy High Performance Meet in Los Angeles on Friday. That clobbered her own mark of 4:10.77 at the Drake Relays, which was an improvement on her own 4:11.01 from last summer.

   As The Journal News noted, Her latest effort -- also a U.S. junior girls record, beats the “A” qualifying standard for August’s world championship meet in Moscow if she makes the U.S. team next month.

   Bill Meylan, who operates the popular TullyRunners.com website, wrote about Cain and her unusual situation -- she stopped competing scholastically for Bronxville last fall and apparently will run unattached until she enters college (or goes pro) in the fall of 2014.

   Should Cain turn pro instead of running in college? It's an interesting question, and Meylan delves into it.

   Extra points: Kellenberg Memorial junior Candace Belvedere has plotted out her basketball future, committing recently to St. Joseph’s University according to Newsday. The 6-foot-2 center averaged 11.1 points and 11.7 rebounds last season.