Section X Spotlight
Athlete features, game recaps, and North Country sports stories
Section X Spotlight: The Road Gets Narrower
A week ago, dozens of Section X teams still had championship dreams. Today? Only two remain standing. That's not a knock on the teams whose seasons ended. That's a reminder of how brutally difficult it is to survive June in New York high school sports. Every round gets tougher. Every opponent gets better. Every mistake gets magnified. And yet, as the dust settles across diamonds and lacrosse fields from Canton to Heuvelton, two Section X teams are still packing bags for the Final Four. The Canton Golden Bears girls lacrosse team. The St. Lawrence Central Larries softball team. Everybody else may be done playing. These two aren't done dreaming. ## Canton Girls Lacrosse Refused to Panic If there was a "How To Win A Regional Final" manual, Canton apparently threw it out before taking the field. The Golden Bears spotted Schuylerville a three-goal lead. Then calmly decided they'd rather win anyway. After trailing 6-3 midway through the third quarter, Canton unleashed a rally that completely flipped the game. The Bears outscored the Horses 6-0 the rest of the way and punched another ticket to the state semifinals. Saige Blevins was everywhere. Olivia Francey delivered in the biggest moments. Madison Ayrassian sparked the comeback. Elena Abplanalp tied the game. By the time the final horn sounded, Canton had turned a season-threatening deficit into a 9-6 victory. Championship teams don't always dominate. Sometimes they simply refuse to lose. That's what Canton looked like. ## The Larries Keep Doing Larrie Things Every year someone asks if St. Lawrence Central can keep it going. Every year the Larries answer the same way. By winning softball games. The Section X champions rolled through regional play and earned yet another trip to the Final Four, continuing one of the North Country's most consistent runs of postseason success. At this point, deep playoff runs are becoming a spring tradition in Brasher Falls. The names change. The graduating classes change. The uniforms get replaced. The winning doesn't seem to. Now the Larries head to Binghamton carrying the hopes of an entire region with them. ## The Seasons That Deserve Remembering The final scores won't define these teams. The banners will. Heuvelton baseball's season came to an end against defending state champion Oriskany. The Bulldogs finished 20-1. Read that again. Twenty wins. One loss. A Section X championship. A regional final appearance. Most programs would build a trophy case around a season like that. The Bulldogs built a legacy. Tupper Lake baseball saw its postseason run conclude against a talented Ticonderoga squad. The Lumberjacks may not be heading to Binghamton, but they reminded everyone why June baseball matters so much in small towns. Packed stands. Community pride. Kids believing anything is possible. That's the good stuff. Massena boys lacrosse battled all the way to a regional final before running into a powerhouse Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake team. The Raiders didn't just represent themselves. They represented Section X. And they did it well. Potsdam boys lacrosse gave fans one of the wildest games of the postseason before falling in overtime to Schuylerville. One shot. One bounce. One overtime goal. Sometimes that's the difference between heartbreak and history. Massena baseball and Canton baseball both carried Section X championship banners into state tournament play. Canton softball made another deep run before running into defending state champion Chatham and one of the state's most dominant pitchers. These teams may not be advancing. But nobody should confuse elimination with failure. Not in June. Not at this level. ## The Final Two When the week began, Section X had championship dreams spread across baseball, softball, and lacrosse. Now the spotlight narrows. Two teams. Two opportunities. Two chances to bring a state championship back to the North Country. Canton girls lacrosse. St. Lawrence Central softball. The rest of Section X will be watching. The rest of Section X will be cheering. And if this postseason has taught us anything, it's that betting against North Country athletes is usually a bad idea. The road to a state title is never easy. But for two Section X teams, the journey continues. And honestly? The best stories are usually saved for the end.
Section X Spotlight: Survive and Advance Season Has Arrived
# Section X Spotlight: Survive and Advance Season Has Arrived There is something different about June sports in the North Country. The temperatures finally remember it's summer. School hallways get quieter. Classrooms start counting down the days. And somewhere between the final exams and graduation parties, Section X teams start chasing something much bigger. State tournament dreams. This week reminded us why high school sports remain one of the greatest reality shows on Earth. Take Canton softball. The Golden Bears walked into St. Lawrence University and treated the Class B subregional like they were late for dinner. Three runs in the first. Three more in the second. Four in the third. Six in the fourth. By the time the dust settled, Canton had piled up 15 hits and a 16-3 victory over Marcellus. The Bears didn't just win. They announced their arrival. Now Chatham stands between Canton and a trip to the state semifinals. Meanwhile, over in Class D softball, Hermon-DeKalb keeps doing what Hermon-DeKalb does this time of year: winning baseball and softball games while giving opposing scorekeepers repetitive stress injuries from writing down all the runs. The Green Demons continue their march toward the state semifinals and remain one of the hottest teams left standing in New York. At St. Lawrence Central, another opportunity awaits. The Larries have quietly become one of the North Country's most consistent postseason programs. Every year they seem to find themselves playing meaningful softball games deep into June while the rest of us are trying to remember where we left the sunscreen. Then there is Tupper Lake baseball. The Lumberjacks may not always receive the statewide headlines, but here they are with a chance to punch a ticket to the state semifinals. The beauty of June baseball is that records no longer matter. District size no longer matters. Only 21 outs matter. Of course, not every story this week ended with a celebration. Massena baseball and Canton baseball both saw their seasons come to an end on the state stage. But let's not make the mistake of measuring those seasons by one final score. Massena captured a Section X Class A championship and represented the North Country with pride. Canton battled through another championship run and spent four innings staring down a state tournament victory before Notre Dame's fifth-inning rally changed everything. Sometimes baseball is cruel. Sometimes the line between playing next week and cleaning out your locker is one inning. That's why we love it. As sports fans, we often obsess over championships. The banners. The trophies. The photos. But this week was a reminder that high school sports are really about moments. The walk-off hits. The bus rides. The dugout celebrations. The senior who gets one more game. The underclassman who discovers she belongs on the big stage. The entire town that suddenly starts checking scores every five minutes on a Tuesday afternoon. That's what makes Section X special. Whether it's a packed softball field in Heuvelton, a baseball game under the lights in Potsdam, or a state tournament showdown at St. Lawrence University, these communities show up. And now we head into another weekend where state semifinal dreams are still alive. A few teams remain standing. The road gets tougher. The pressure gets heavier. The margin for error gets smaller. Just the way June likes it. Stay tuned. The best stories might still be ahead. Keywords: Section X Sports, Section X Baseball, Section X Softball, NYSPHSAA Playoffs, Canton Golden Bears, Hermon-DeKalb Green Demons, St. Lawrence Central Larries, Tupper Lake Lumberjacks, Massena Raiders, North Country High School Sports, New York State High School Playoffs, Section X Scoreboard.
Welcome to Section X Scoreboard
Your home for Section X high school sports scores, standings, and playoff brackets. Submit scores after games, upload photos, and send shoutouts to athletes. Coverage of baseball, softball, lacrosse, golf, and more — with football, basketball, and hockey coming this fall.