Leading off today: The St. Michael Academy move isn't going all that smoothly, which isn't surprising given that we're talking about teen basketball players being asked to immerse themselves into a huge change.
Outstanding rising senior guard Starr Breedlove is the latest to decide she will not follow coach Apache Paschall from SMA, which closed its doors last month, to play basketball in Brooklyn at Nazareth. Rather, Breedlove will attend her third school in three years when she enrolls at DePaul Catholic in New Jersey this fall, she told The New York Post.
The Bronx native, who is being recruited by the likes of Miami (Fla.) and Georgetown, played at Paterson Catholic in N.J. before transferring to SMA last year. She'll be reunited with AAU coach Maria Harper, who was an assistant coach at Paterson.
"It’s a big loss, because she’s a quality kid,” Paschall told the paper. "But Maria Harper is good people. She’ll take care of her."
Rising sophomores Jazmine Hamlet and Erica Ward opted for Francis Lewis when the SMA closing was announced. Guard Tayshana (Chicken) Murphy, who never suited up after transferring from Bishop Loughlin during the past season, is a huge question mark, and the paper also reported junior point guard Darius Faulk could end up at Christ The King -- though Paschall believes she'll play for Nazareth.
Remarkable: The Rochester District Golf Association re-named its annual championship tournament more than a quarter of a century ago in honor of McQuaid graduate John H. Ryan Jr., who was on his way to big things at Duke University -- and probably professional golf -- before dying in a boating accident in 1982.
We now have a fitting successor to Ryan's exploits on the course, and his name is Gavin Hall.
Hall, 15, won the four-round tournament for the second time on Saturday by beating the Rochester area's best adult golfers by an outlandish 18 strokes. He fired back-to-back 65s to open a 12-shot lead and finished with 68 and 73 to end the event with a 13-under-par score on Oak Hill Country Club's West Course.
"To beat a field like this is incredible," Hall told the Democrat and Chronicle. "It feels great because I really played well all week."
The West Course is not the club's "championship" course (where Curtis Strange and Lee Trevino won U.S. Opens and Jack Nicklaus captured the PGA), but it's no dog patch either; the USGA found it worthy enough to hold it's U.S. Amateur there not too long ago. A 271 total over 72 holes is a tremendous feat.
Hall finished tied for 12th and in 13th place in his first two appearances in the NYSPHSAA Championships for Pittsford Mendon, then placed third this spring as a freshman. Remember the name for the next three years.
