Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2015: Pittsford loses star RB Mack to broken hand

   Leading off today: Pittsford climbed a notch to No. 5 in Class AA when the New York State Sportswriters Association released its latest football rankings Wednesday, but not all the news was good for the Panthers.

   Running back Josh Mack, an honorable mention all-stater last fall as a junior, is expect to miss Pittsford's final two regular-season games with a broken left hand, the Democrat and Chronicle reported. Mack said two screws were inserted during surgery Monday to help heal a metacarpal bone fracture.

   "I'm out for 10 days," Mack told the paper. "I'll be back for sectionals."

   Pittsford takes on Webster Thomas and Penfield in its final two tune-ups before the Section 5 quarterfinals.

   Mack said the injury occurred Sept. 26 during the first half as he applied a stiff-arm on a Fairport defender. That means that in almost all certainty he carried the ball 49 times with a broken hand last weekend when Pittsford beat then-No. 4 Orchard Park. He ran for 353 yards and four TDs vs. the Quakers.

   Keith Molinich told the paper he had no idea Mack's number of carries climbed so high last weekend. "Now we have a guy who keeps track of that, but I never thought to go ask him," he told the paper. "So it's clearly something we'll keep an eye on in the future. We don't want to drain a kid, but he had a night-and-a-half that night."

   Season's over: South Lewis has canceled its three remaining varsity football games due to a lack of available players, coach Mike Absolom told The Daily Times.

   Absolom said the decision was made after the coaching staff met with school administrators Monday.

   "We had fought the numbers game all season," the third-year coach said.

   South Lewis finished 0-4 in Section 3's National Football Foundation East Division, a development program for struggling teams.

   Following up: The Section 1 Athletic Council upheld a ruling from its eligibility committee that banned two boys from playing varsity field hockey at Rye this fall, The Journal News reported.

RoadToSyracuse.com football site

   Senior Sean Walsh and freshman Phile Govaert, were judged to be superior to female players based on a physical fitness test administered before the season. The council also concluded the boys would displace girls from the team, something coach Emily Townsend Prince disputed.

   Section 1 Executive Director Jennifer Simmons represented the eligibility committee at the hearing last week before the Executive Council, the paper reported. She said Govaert "far exceeded 85 percent norms" for girls his age on the physical fitness test.

   Extra points: Hudson Falls receiver John Combs started the year with a pelvic fracture and then re-injured it last week in the Tigers' loss to Schuylerville, costing him the remainder of the season, The Post-Star reported. Combs was Hudson Falls' leading receiver as a sophomore last year with 23 catches for 350 yards.