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The last six days have been quite full of high school sports drama, but what took place on Saturday topped them all.

First, there was the wrestling equivalent of local bragging rights, the Section III Dual Meet at C-NS, and Phoenix won it the hard way.

After an easy first-round win over Baldwinsville, the Firebirds needed to go to the last match to knock off no. 3 seed Indian RIver 40-34, then got past a strong General Brown unit 48-31 in the semifinals. Oh yeah, and it merely had to avenge a Jan. 11 defeat to Fulton in the finals - which it did, 33-32, clinching it with Rowdy Prior's decision over Devin Viscome in the next-to-last match on the card.

As this was going on, they were celebrating in Sackets Harbor. When New York Mills, the state's top-ranked boys basketball team in Class D and the defending state champs, booked this game, it had little idea that the Patriots would carry the no. 2 ranking in the state, adding to the drama.

Mills had the best player on the court - Matt Welch, who did drop 30. But Sackets had the better team, Zach D'Allesandro earning most of his 21 points in the second half, including the clinching free throws, to help the Patriots beat the Marauders 68-63. Now almost everyone expects a sectional finals rematch in the Carrier Dome - wouldn't THAT be fun?

And in New York City's Armory, a bit of indoor track history. West Genesee's Laura Leff broke the Section III record (4:48.96) in the mile, winning her 1,600-meter invitational at the New Balance Games to earn a spot in next month's Millrose Games, while Liverpool's Zavon Watkins won the boys mile in 4:14.52

So capped an indoor track week that was quite busy, with two meets at SRC Arena and one at Colgate. All the usual suspects won on the team side (including the C-NS boys twice), but the real kicker was seeing Cazenovia go to the top in the Bob Grieve Invitational against an entirely new field after a winter full of MVITA conquests. That only adds intrigue to the upcoming league and sectional meets.

Just as Sackets' win made Class D a bit more interesting, the AA picture only got more crowded. Utica Proctor, once 10-0, took its first two blemishes in a pair of road overtime defeats to C-NS and Henninger. Add those three teams to a large pot of contenders that already included F-M, Corcoran, Oswego and Nottingham, and every one of them could beat the others in a single game next month.

It's the same in Class C, where the crowd keeps getting larger. Fabius-Pompey, Pulaski and Port Byron are as likely to win as SAS, ITC, Cooperstown or Mohawk, and Beaver River made quite a statement by knocking off previously unbeaten South Jefferson.

That added fresh questions to the Spartans' credentials in Class B, just as Cazenovia awaits second shots at Bishop Ludden and Bishop Grimes and Westhill creeps closer,,Ludden needing a Cameron Littlejohn buzzer-beater to subdue the Warriors on Friday. Skaneateles hopes Jimmy Atkinson recovers from a sore ankle, and they'll be a handful.

Moving to the girls side, a "Big Three" of sorts in Class B have separated themselves. Utica-Notre Dame won four times in six days, including the Juggler Classic. Westhill completed a season sweep of Bishop Ludden and is poised to run the regular-season table, and South Jefferson beat a Class AA team (Nottingham) and wiped out Thousand Islands, two big obstacles to its own unblemished mark.

Otherwise, the biggest news of the week, by far, in girls hoops was the return of Fabius-Pompey star Stevie Ray from her torn ACL. WIth both Ray and Kirsten Dodge on the court, the defending Class C champion Falcons could prove the equal of unbeaten Weedsport, a team that smoked F-P twice while Ray recuperated.

And don't say it too loudly....but the J-D girls are also unbeaten. All season long, Rob Siechen said that, if they made close shots, they could break the rut of close games, and that's what happened against CBA on Friday. Clearly, the Red Rams and New Hartford are the Class A front-runners.

Just a few weeks remain in the regular season, and the scramble for playoff spots and high seeds will really begin now....even in a week where Regents exams cuts down the schedule a bit.