Leading off today: Darius Faulk has had a change of heart, opting to join many of her former St. Michael Academy basketball teammates at Nazareth in the CHSAA rather than enroll at Baldwin, The New York Post reported.

   The junior point guard who helped SMA to te 2009 Federation Class AA championship, registered at Nazareth at Friday and started classes at the Brooklyn school yesterday, coach Apache Paschall told the paper.

   Faulk originally ruled out Nazareth because of the grind of the daily commute. Now, her father will drive her to Queens Village to share a ride to school with a teammate into East Flatbush. That should cut her time on the road each day to about an hour in each direction.

   The 5-foot-9 guard already has attracted significant college interest. "She’s one of the top point guards in the city,” Paschall said. “This was gonna be her breakout year no matter where she was at. I just didn’t want her to break out against us.”

   A tough climb: The Flushing girls soccer team is playing in the Queens A-IV division this fall after earning two PSAL 'B' soccer championships in back-to-back undefeated seasons.

   The Red Devils are feeling the effect of the step up already, dropping a 3-0 decision to Francis Lewis over the weekend to end a 35-game win streak. It was Flushing's first league defeat since a 2-0 loss to Goldstein on May 29, 2008.

   "They really pushed us hard and put a lot of pressure on us," Flushing coach Chris Zogopoulos told The New York Daily News. They were very physical. In the first 20-25 minutes, we were down 3-0. We made a couple of mistakes in the back. Then we got our bearings and settled in nicely. The second half was very even. We had a couple of scoring chances. I was proud of the girls. They played 70 minutes of scoreless football."

   Rankings progress: The first New York State Sportswriters Association rankings for NYSPHSAA boys soccer teams is out and can be seen here.

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   The football rankings will make their debut tomorrow by 4 p.m., and several other fall sports will be rolled out in the next week.

   Canandaigua's future: Discussions are continuing in Canandaigua regarding the future of Evans Field, the longtime home of the football program. The group studying the possibility of moving the team onto the school campus has formed subcommittees to examine the pros and cons of both sites, and community interest is picking up heading into a public meeting tonight.

   The Daily Messenger reported that a group advocating staying at Evans Field has enlisted nearly 1,900 supporters on a Facebook page.

   The initial findings will be presented to the full committee, which will at some point make a recommendation to the board of education, which will factor in Superintendent Don Raw's discussions with the State Education Department regarding funding options; improvements to Evans Field would not be eligible for state aid because the facility is separate from the school campus.

   That's no small consideration in the discussion since a July estimate said $2.87 million would be needed to keep the football program at Evans. Improvements would include field house renovations and bleacher upgrades.