With a roll of the dice and a Zoom meeting, the Allegany-Limestone and Ellicottville softball teams came together for an unconventional Senior Night on Tuesday. The brainchild of Ellicottville coach Matt Finn saw softball players rolling dice to simulate the experience of a softball at-bat. Finn had his daughter, who plays for Allegany-Limestone coach Lindsey Hamed, contact the Gators’ second-year mentor. “I got a text from her that said, ‘Hey, my dad’s got a crazy idea for senior night, can...

(Editor’s note: This is the last in a three-part weekly series on the 1999 Salamanca football season, which culminated in the program’s first state championship game appearance.) With a coaching change for the first time in 25 years, the players remained a rock Salamanca’s new football staff could rely on in 1999. Coach Rich Morton’s first season, replacing Salamanca legend George Whitcher, saw the Warriors ready to contend right away. With 13 seniors, Morton inherited a tight-knit group...

If New York’s high school football can start on time, teams will have the option to play one week earlier, adding an eighth regular season game Sept. 4 or 5. Following a vote by the NYSPHSAA committee to expand the high school football season by one week, the Section 6 Football Federation made plans to add games in “Week 0,” one week prior to the originally scheduled opening weekend. The new rule allows teams to play 11 games through the sectional championship round. Of course, the fall...

ALLEGANY — Michael Wolfgang wishes, like any high school senior athlete, he could be enjoying these weeks winding down toward graduation with his friends and teammates. He very well could have been preparing for a third-straight trip to the state track and field championships as well, under more normal circumstances. And while every senior across the Big 30 area, and the country more broadly, lost something this spring due to the coronavirus pandemic, A-L’s star hurdlers, Wolfgang and senior...

One of the area’s longtime football minds is turning to a digital media platform to record his memories of a hall of fame career that spanned nearly a half-century. Tim Bergan, the former Ellicottville Central School multi-sport coach (including football, basketball and softball), talks each week with his daughter in recorded conversation for a podcast. “Once in a Blue Moon” by Janeen Pizzo is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all major podcast distributors. Bergan coached at...