Sunday, June 9, 2013: Hoppey going out a winner at Ward Melville

   After more than three decades in the sport and a nice run with one of the great lacrosse programs in the country, the Ward Melville coach understands life on the job isn't going to get much better than the path the Patriots took to their eighth New York State Public High School Athletic Association boys title: A 22-0 season and a dominating (when was the last time the Wildcats were ever on the wrong end of the running-clock rule?), 16-4 win in the final over West Genesee, another elite program.

   And so Saturday's Class A game at St. John Fisher College in Pittsford was Hoppey's last. He announced after the game that he is heading happily into retirement.

   "I've been coaching at Ward Melville for 32 years and I think this is the best game I've ever seen a Ward Melville team play," Hoppey said after his first championship and the school's first since 2000. "To come in and have running time against a great program like West Genesee and get to play all our players was a tremendous accomplishment."

   Brendan Hegarty finished with four goals and an assist, Jake Kepes added three goals and two assists, and Christian Mazzone had two goals and three assists. Midfielder Bruckner chipped in with two goals and two assists.

   "We came out with the intention of going 48 minutes as hard as we could," Bruckner said. "A lot of the seniors left it all out on the field because it's the last time we'll ever put on a Ward Melville jersey, so it meant a lot to us. We feel really special now."

   Garden City executes: Nearly as impressive as Ward Melville's win was the 13-8 victory by defending champion Garden City over Jamesville-DeWitt in Class B.

   The Trojans broke open a 3-3 game with eight goals in the third quarter, turning a dream matchup into a one-sided affair. Junior Cody George tallied five goals and an assist for the afternoon. George and Jack Worstell each scored twice during a 6-0 run that made the score 9-3. James Sullivan won the first six faceoffs of the second half and finished 17-for-25 on the X.

   "This feels amazing. Our team chemistry just kept getting better and better," George told Newsday.

   Girls lacrosse: Relatively speaking, there was new blood atop the medals stand in girls lacrosse this weekend. Farmingdale (Class A) notched its first title since 2010 and just its third overall, Syracuse CBA (B) took its second championship and Mount Sinai (C) earned its first crown in the 19-year history of the event.

   A day after escaping with a 7-6 triumph against Honeoye Falls-Lima in OT, Mount Sinai dug itself into a 3-0 hole in the first six minutes but came back to fire off 10 straight goals and take command on the way to a 15-6 win vs. Skaneateles.

   "We just had to settle in a little bit," Mustangs coach Al Bertolone told The Post-Standard. "We had to win a draw,

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get a goal, and then the floodgates opened."

   By the time Skaneateles scored again with 18:56 left in the second half, the score was 10-4 and the Mustangs were on their way to completing a 20-0 season as New York's last unbeaten squad.

   Mount Sinai, which lost the 2011 Class C final .by a goal to Syracuse CBA, got four goals apiece from sisters Shayna (a sophomore) and Sydney Pirreca (a junior). Senior midfielder Caroline Fitzgerald chipped in with three goals. All three have committed to the University of Florida.

   Track and field: With the state championships being condensed into a one-day meet due to Friday's heavy rain, it's even tougher to sift through two classes and two sexes to extract the top nuggets. Saying that, though, Medgar Evers senior Kadecia Baird isn't a bad place to start.

   A year ago, Baird pulled a Division I double of :12.00/:24.15 in the short sprints to earn a pair of titles. That was positively pedestrian compared to Saturday's work at Middletown High School -- :11.74 in the 100 meters and a windy :23.69 in to 200 after a legal :23.71 in the prelims.

   Topping it all off, she anchored the school's 400 relay to victory in :46.49, scorching the 2001 meet record of Paul Robeson (:46.83).

   Speaking of records, Cardozo's Sabrina Southerland won the 800 meters in a meet-best 2:06.09, erasing the mark of 2:07.46 from Charlene Lipsey (Hempstead, 2008).

   In the boys 100, Hudson senior Winston Lee qualified in :10.64 and then won the Division II final in :10.62, both superior to the meet record of :10.76 put up by Sayville's Chris Belcher a year ago. Belcher settled for second in :10.71, and Ryheim Lawes of Liverpool was third in :10.75.

   Nick Ryan of Fayetteville-Manlius bid farewell with a win (8:58.28) in the 3,200 meters and settled for second (4:07.55) to Carmel's Eric Holt (4:07.00) in the 1,600 in a double made more difficult by the condensed schedule.

   More Monday: I'll wrap up a few more news notes, including the conclusion of baseball's draft, on in the next blog.