Leading off today: The Streak is over, as Chris Gill reported in The Leader this morning:

   "In case the raucous celebration, symphony of car horns or the metaphysical glow hanging over the western horizon of Corning around 9 p.m. Monday night didn't tip you off, Corning West's boys lacrosse team ended 41 years of futility and frustration at Memorial Stadium, finally beating perennial state power and natural rival Corning East, 9-8 in overtime," he wrote.

   Corning East had defeated Corning West in all 97 games in the series, which started in 1965. There had been a few close calls, including two overtime games and six others decided by one or two goals, but the usual final score in the rivalry tended to be "a lot" to "a little."

   Until yesterday when Jay Stearns let fly with the winning shot 2:13 into overtime.

   Gill's story said that attendance grew throughout the game as fans alerted friends that an upset was in the making.

   Draw your own conclusions: Newsweek has published its annual list of the 1,200 best academic high schools in America. The list is based on 2006 data, rather arbitrarily adding up the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and/or Cambridge tests taken by all students and then dividing by the number of graduating seniors.

   I cross-referenced the top 20 performers against a database of football scores from the 2006 season, and it's a pretty ugly story. As best I can tell, only seven of the top 20 have football teams.

   Of the seven, only No. 14 Dallas Highland Park (11-1) and No. 16 Gainesville, Fla., Eastside (10-2) went better than 3-7.

   Gifts from out of the blue: You just gotta love the way this whole blogging thing works.

   For instance, I led a recent blog entry with information on two violent climes. Within hours, Google started delivering ads on the right side of the page related to self-defense lessons, body armor, home security systems and college pre-law degrees.

   And then last week there was a brief mention of tennis win streaks with a parenthetical mention that I was working from a 1999 edition of the National Federation record book.

   So I strolled out to my mailbox late yesterday afternoon, and what do you think was waiting for me? Yep, a copy of the 2006 record book -- 224 glorious pages of high school sports minutiae -- sent along by a kindly benefactor.

   Neat, huh? Would this be the appropriate time and place to mention that I'm driving an '02 Buick Century these days but have my eye on an '07 Lexus? And that I'd love to have a quiet dinner with Rolex spokesmodel Julia Stegner?

   Extra points: Kyle Putnam has now gone 48 innings without allowing an earned run this season following Newburgh Free Academy's 13-1 win at Washingtonville yesterday. Putnam (7-0) struck out 11 in a complete game. . . . Congratulations to Steve Bradley, who was promoted to Lead Local Editor/Sports at the Democrat and Chronicle last week. And best wishes to outgoing sports editor Tom Batzold, whose attention to high school sports was much appreciated within the Rochester readership area.

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