Tuesday, June 4, 2013: Shaker's Jensen wins NYSPHSAA golf championship

   Leading off today: Shaker senior Davis Jensen fired a second-round 73 on Monday and won the New York State Public High School Athletic Association boys golf championship by three strokes.

   Jensen finished with a 36-hole total of 5-over 147 at Cornell University's Robert Trent Jones Golf Course. New Hartford freshman Alec Bard (74-76--150) was alone in second, a stroke better than Matt van Niekerk of Harley-Allendale Columbia and Kyle Burke of Sayville.

   Jensen's 73, fueled by birdies on Nos. 11, 12 and 13, was the low score of the day on the 99-player field.

   First-day leader Alex Ferrante of Nyack ballooned to an 81 for a 152 total and a tie for fifth place, tied with three others including Derek Bard (74-78--152) of New Hartford.

   By finishing in the top two, Jensen received an exemption for next month's State Amateur at Schuyler Meadows, where his father, Steve, is head pro.

   Section 3 took team honors with a total of 1,098, seven strokes better than Section 5.

   What a start: Opening day of the NYSPHSAA playoffs in baseball and softball couldn't have gone any better for Section 2, which went 6-0 and outscored opponents 50-6 in the two sports.

   Queensbury, Schalmont and Voorheesville all won in baseball. Troy, Chatham and Greenwich advanced in softball. Queensbury and Chatham advanced with 12-0 whitewashes.

   Queensbury pitchers Zach Parsons, Chris Pontiff and Brett Rodriguez combined for the shutout, advancing the Spartans to Tuesday's state quarterfinal vs. Cortland.

   UConn-bound Kayla Doty pitched three-hitter in Chatham's softball win over Canton, striking out 14 batters and walking one. Michaela Smith was 2-for-4 at the plate with a double and three runs batted in.

   Out of miracles: The baseball season ended Monday for Maine-Endwell. All things considered, it's not unexpected they didn't have much left in a 7-1 loss to John Jay Cross River in the NYSPHSAA Class A first round.

   Four days earlier, Maine-Endwell rallied from an 8-0 seventh-inning deficit to beat Vestal 11-9 in the Section 4 championship. I mention that game because:

   • (a) I missed one of the best comebacks N.Y. high school baseball history completely while assembling weekend blogs. (Thanks to Mike Connell for alerting me.)

   • (b) It had one of the most unusual endings you're ever going to see, a scene almost straight out of the movie "Major League," with the M-E catcher taking a throw to the plate and tagging out two Vestal runners in bang-bang fashion. You can see it in the WBNG-TV recap of the game.

   The JJCR game included a scary moment as M-E’s Kyle Gallagher hit a first-inning fly to right field that resulted in a collision between outfielder Jason Valvano and second baseman Ronnie Corelli. Corelli laid motionless for several minutes and had to be taken by ambulance to a hospital. He was checked for a possible concussion and later released.

   CHSAA lacrosse: Connor Fields scored a season-high 11 goals as Timon-St. Jude beat host St. John the Baptist of Long Island 20-4 to win the CHSAA Class AA boys lacrosse championship. J.D. Recor contributed six assists

Spring tournament schedules NYSPHSAA boys lacrosse NYSPHSAA girls lacrosse NYSPHSAA baseball NYSPHSAA softball

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to the rout.

   Fields, a junior attackman who has committed to SUNY Albany, finished his season with 129 goals, the presumed state record.

   Priorities: Ten of Portville’s 18 players are seniors, and nine of them were supposed to be spending a full week in Virginia Beach, Va., on a class trip to celebrate their graduation. However, the school's first Section 6 baseball title (and trip to the state tournament) put a crimp in their plans.

   So what did they do? Simple. They came home a couple of days early -- a nine-hour trip in a van with Thomas Simon, the district superintendent -- so they would be able to take on Geneseo in Tuesday's NYSPHSAA Class C quarterfinal in Jamestown.

   It's always nice to see young people remain committed to something they started.

   Here's why: Here at the New York State Sportswriters Association headquarters we periodically receive complaints (some justified, some lame) about our rankings in various sports. Here's why emails suggesting that the computer rankings in a particular sport are so much wiser than our own assessments typically get sent to the spam folder without the courtesy of a response.

   After doing the NYSSWA boys lacrosse rankings Sunday night, Neil Kerr took a look at what LaxPower.com had to say about Class A. Keep in mind that LaxPower is a fabulous site, and its rankings during the course of the regular season are usually quite good. It's when the postseason starts, however, that the data can easily go a little loopy.

   "The NYS Class A ratings today show that teams 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 on the LaxPower site are all DONE. See for yourself," Kerr wrote. "Competing in the NYSPHSAA final four are No. 1. Ward Melville, No. 11. Penfield, No. 12. West Genesee and No. 15 Shenendehowa.

   "That is insanely stupid and it gives us poll editors a bad name. And LaxPower still has the final Division I college ratings as No. 1 Cornell, No. 4 Duke and No. 10. Syracuse.

   "I get too annoyed at this sort of colossal stupidity. Sorry."

   Again, LaxPower is a must-see site all year long for fans of the sport. But when Penfield -- which is by no means a fluke state semifinalist despite its 13-7 record -- is still ranked behind three Section 5 teams (Pittsford, Fairport and Webster Thomas) and an Orchard Park squad it beat twice, it tells me that their computer has no way of factoring in injuries and doesn't give enough nearly enough weight to the postseason.