Leading off today: Fayetteville-Manlius senior Alex Hatz continued his comeback from August surgery by winning the scholastic mile at the Reebok Indoor Games in Boston yesterday with a time of 4:12.08 to take the national lead for the season.

   Hatz, the 2009 state outdoor 1,600-meter champion, kicked home in 1:00 for the final quarter mile and pulled away from Ammar Moussa (4:14.13) of Arcadia, Calif., High in the final 200 yards.

   Hatz views the victory as the start of something rather than the culmination of his comeback after having to shut down midway through cross country season. "Now we go back to work to get that time down," he said/

   Roslyn senior Emily Lipari, whose cross country season was cut short down the stretch by an ankle injury, kicked hard down the stretch of the girls mile for a victory in 4:46.77, also a national season best. Joanna Stevens of Blacksburg, Va., and Millrose champ Cory Ann McGee from Mississippi were second and third in 4:50.02 and 4:50.06, respectively.

   Lipari pulled away from McGee in the final 150 yards en route to the decisive victory. "I had the pop in my legs and something extra," she said. "I know if I get through 800, and I still feel good, that I’m going to have a good race."

   Newburgh looks sharp: Mike McLeod scored 30 points and grabbed 12 rebounds as No. 5 Newburgh Free Academy beat No. 9 Poughkeepsie 82-69 in a battle of state-ranked boys basketball teams at Mount Saint Mary College.

   Patrick Johnson added 19 points and eight rebounds, and Marcus Henderson had nine points, six assists and four steals.

   Williamsville North skaters win: Scott Sims scored the go-ahead goal for No. 2 Williamsville North in a 3-1 victory vs. No. 7 Niagara-Wheatfield in a game between ranked Division I hockey programs from Section 6.

   "We haven't played well the [past] couple games," Williamsville North coach Bob Rosen told The Buffalo News. "This is the first game out of the last three we played the full three periods."

   Silly season is here: By now you've heard the report that David Sills, a 13-year-old from Bear County, Del., has given a verbal commitment to play quarterback at USC even though he's only in seventh grade.

   The scholarship offer came from Trojans coach Lane Kiffin, who apparently couldn't be content with locking up a strong 2010 class of recruits on Wednesday. Besides having a healthy ego, Kiffin probably was looking for a way to have to avoid about the Reggie Bush investigation, which he must have expected would be raised in the run up to the New Orleans Saints' Super Bowl debut.

   Sills' coach at Red Lion Christian Academy and his private quarterback coach confirmed Sills' commitment to USC.

   Dick "Hoops" Weiss had a strong take on the silly notion of a 5-foot-11 junior high student picking a college before he picks a high school. AMong the questions he raises: Did any of the (alleged) adults in this affair stop to think about the enormous pressure this puts on the kid for the next five years, regardless of whether the USC thing works out?

   The NCAA already has a rule prohibiting basketball coaches from taking commitments from seventh- and eighth-graders; apparently no one thought that a football coach would be shameless enough to pull such a stunt.

   "It greatly concerns me," said Jim Haney, executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches "Our association has agreed it will not take commitments from a prospect prior to the summer between his soph-

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omore and junior years. It just gives fuel to the perception that the coaches are out of control . . . that coaches are trying to sign kids when they are born or all they can think about is recruiting."

   Fisher leaving General Brown: Steve Fisher will also step down as the General Brown football coach when he retires after 43 years of teaching, the Watertown Daily Times reported.

   Fisher leaves with a career record of 252-113-8, second only to Jerry Walczak (271) of Dolgeville in Section 3 victories. The Lions won a fourth sectional crown last fall and finished 10-1.

   Fisher also coached varsity and JV wrestling for 27 years and has officiated lacrosse games for 31 years.

   Former coach accused: Former Xaverian freshman baseball coach Gerard Bruzzese, 46, accepted payments for illegal bets while on the job -- even walking off the field in uniform to pick up the cash as part of a bookmaking operation that took in as much as $35,000 a week -- law-enforcement sources told The New York Post last week.

   Bruzzese, who resigned last summer, was hired at Xaverian despite serving a year in the federal pen from 2000 to 2001 for securities fraud related to a mob-linked pump-and-dump stock-fraud operation, the paper reported.

   "It's a pretty low-on-the-totem-pole position at the school," Bruzzese's lawyer, Arthur Aidala, told the paper. "Even if the school knew that somebody committed a very low-level white-collar crime, does that necessarily disqualify him?"

   Canale, too, had a prior brush with the law before he was hired as Xaverian's baseball coach and building manager. He was busted in 1996 on possession of gambling records, but pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, sources said.

   Bruzzese was hired by Xaverian varsity coach Dennis Canale, a retired NYPD cop who resigned late last year after the Brooklyn DA's Office alleged Bruzzese was involved in an illegal sports-betting Web site. Sources said Canale's name has surfaced in the current gambling investigation; his lawyer declined comment.

   Sources told the paper that Xaverian officials are also looking into allegations that students placed bets with Canale and Bruzzese, but school president Robert Alesi said there was no evidence of such activity.

   Canale's teams won four city championships and had eight players selected in Major League Baseball's entry draft.

   Extra points: The Shaker school board is expected to appoint Mary-Lynne McGee as girls lacrosse coach at its Feb. 22 meeting, The Times Union reported. She coached Suffern to a 226-23-7 record from 1984-97, producing 19 All-Americans. She has been the director of Metro Lacrosse Club since 1999.