Leading off today: It was just a matter of time for Maple Grove's boys basketball team, and it will just be a matter of time for its star player.

   Maple Grove, which took its lumps against a challenging regular-season schedule, earned the Section 6 Class D championship last night with a 43-32 victory over Sherman at Jamestown Community College. It improved the Red Dragons' record to 13-8 and gave added credibility to the notion that they are legitimate contenders for the state title.

   Meanwhile, Secky drew closer to a personal milestone by scoring 20 points in the final. It raised his career total to 1,996 points and put him within easy range of becoming Western New York's 13th player to hit the 2K mark next weekend in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association quarterfinals at Buffalo State.

   Maple Grove, ranked seventh by the New York State Sportswriters Association, was the local pick in Class D all season after winning the state Class C crown in 2008 and reaching the D semifinals last winter. The Red Dragons played a tough independent schedule this season and wound up seeded third in the tournament.

   They trailed the top seed 23-21 until Secky poured in 13 points in the third quarter, which Maple Grove dominated by a 17-2 margin.

   We just had to fight through adversity," Secky told The Buffalo News. "We knew something was going to happen like this, and we just fought and fought and came back."

   The debate, again: I got a kick out of reading the Times Herald-Record story from this morning a couple of hours after Aquinas, C.G. Finney and Batavia Notre Dame all lost boys basketball finals in my neck of the woods, but the issue does come up fairly regularly: Do private schools hold an unfair advantage, one that skews the results of sectional and state tournaments?

   "Every kid on our team has been at our school since ninth grade," Coleman Catholic girls basketball coach Guy Leonard told reporter Kevin Gleason. "With the way the economy is right now, I don't know too many people

Winter season bonus links Boys hoops: Road to Glens Falls, your all-purpose destination Boys hoops: Sectional tourney scores and NYSPHSAA brackets Girls hoops: NYSPHSAA brackets Boys hockey: NYSPHSAA brackets - D-I | D-II Wrestling: Final NYSPHSAA results - D-I | D-II

who will pay $6,500 to come here to play basketball."

   The frequent success of schools like Coleman and Burke Catholic doesn't sit well with some observers, particularly after the ease with Coleman won the Section 9 Class D crown last night -- 58-21 over Eldred.

   Gleason summed up a key part of the debate thusly: "To what extent, if any, do coaches — or assistants, or anybody associated with the program — recruit athletes? And to what extent, if any, do athletes choose a private school primarily for its sports team? Because a lot of public-school coaches are certain that their private-school counterparts are recruiting like crazy.

   The accusers, however, refuse to speak on the record. They don't want to be embroiled in the controversy. And they acknowledge that outside of a confession, it's almost impossible to prove a coach is recruiting."

   You can read the rest of the story here.

   Today's action: I didn't get around to posting this blog until fairly late on Saturday, so this comes a bit late. I threw together a page today that aggregated Twitter feeds from several media outlets around the state, in effect providing real-time tracking of action on sectional and state tournaments.

   I'd like to make more use of it down the road, so send me the information (the e-mail link is below) if you know of high school sports reporters who tweet regularly on Twitter.