HERKIMER ― High-scoring Dolgeville junior Payton Comstock broke a record almost as old as her parents Thursday, Feb. 12, adding her latest accomplishment to a collection of area milestones met by area high school players during the current basketball season.
Comstock, a double-digit varsity scorer each season since she was in eighth grade, leads the 14-4 Blue Devils with a career-high average of 20.6 point per game this winter. She became Dolgeville’s sixth 1,000-point scorer in January – and the fourth girl to hit the millennium mark at the school – and took the top spot on that leaderboard Thursday when she scored 15 points in a 42-34 road win over the Herkimer Magicians.
Comstock has now scored 1,238 points in four varsity seasons, two more than Sylvia DeCarr, the previous record holder who graduated in 1981 after helping Dolgeville win a state championship in her final season and the first year of the state’s girls tournament. DeCarr’s sister Barb netted 1,060 points before Dolgeville dropped the spot for girls, and the pair were the only 1,000-point Blue Devils of the 20th century.
Hannah Stack (1,194 points) and Kerisa Van Olst (1,107), a teammate of Stack as a freshman and Comstock as a senior, have topped 1,000 points since the sport returned for girls at the turn of the century. Greg Gonyea (1,056) and Kamryn Comstock (1,154), Payton’s brother, have hit 1,000 in the past five years.
“One thousand points was more of a goal,” Payton Comstock said. “I’ve been working for this for four years. It was probably ninth grade when I started thinking about it.
“Plus, I kinda wanted to brag to my brother.”
Comstock tied the DeCarr record with the free throw that completed a three-point play after driving for a basket with three minutes remaining in the third quarter and the Blue Devils leading 33-14 in their third consecutive victory and eighth in nine games. She took sole possession with a driving layup from the other side of the lane at the 1:50 mark of the same period.
Comstock is one of several area players who have hit 1,000 this season, having achieved the milestone with the final points of her season-high 36-point game against Mt. Markham at home in January. Sitting at 996 points, Comstock hit a three-point shot from the left elbow, drew a foul, and added a free throw for a four-point play in the third quarter of a 73-10 victory.
Comstock has scored 30 or more points four times this season. Her career-high is 52 against Brookfield as a sophomore.
In addition to the 1,000s, Notre Dame senior Ella Trinkaus became Section III’s 13th female 2,000-point scorer. Here is a look at the accomplishments of Trinkaus and the others who have hit milestones.
Trinkaus hits 2,000, pursues record at Notre Dame
Trinkaus, the section’s top scorer this fall at 27.5 points per game for the undefeated Jugglers (19-0). She hit 1,000 as a sophomore during the season when she and sisters Erin and Maggie led Notre Dame to the state’s 2024 Class B championship.
She finished that season with 1,210 points, and raised her total to 1,792 as a junior, averaging over 25 points both seasons. Ella Trinkaus raised her total to 2,000 in a 62-39 win over New Hartford December 28 during the Downtown Classic at the Nexus Center in Utica. She had 27 points and 13 rebounds in that game, the 28th in her current streak of 41 consecutive double-doubles – a streak that includes four triple-doubles.
Trinkaus joins her cousin Emily Durr who graduated from Notre Dame as Section III’s female career scoring leader in 2014 with 2,445 points after she and the Jugglers won a state championship during her senior year.
Durr is currently No. 2 on the Section III scoring list behind 2022 South Jefferson graduate Jackie Piddock who finished with 2,798.
Marcellus senior Cece Powell followed Trinkaus over the 2,000-point mark in January.
Trinkaus enters her final regular season game Friday with 2,319 points. She has nine 30-point games this season, and set her career high with 44 at New Hartford last February.
Ella Trinkaus, Ella’s twin, has scored 800 varsity points, and Maggie Trinkaus graduated in 2024 with 829.
Another day, another thousand at Downtown Classic
The day after Trinkaus hit her milestone at the Nexus Center, Rome Free Academy senior Haylee Bostwick hit 1,000 in another Downtown Classic contest.
The leading scorer for the Black Knights (14-5) at 17.8 points per game, Bostwick scored a team-high 19 in a loss to Syracuse’s newly-merged Bishop Ludden-Grimes Gaelic Knights.
Bostwick scored a career-high 26 points against Whitesboro at the end of January, topping the 25 she scored against Notre Dame last winter.
Reddington hits 1,000 as a sophomore
West Canada Valley sophomore Brooke Reddington hit 1,000 points in the first quarter of an 81-45 win over Cooperstown January 15, the seventh win in a current streak of 15 victories for the Nighthawks who await February 18 sectional playoff seeding with a 19-1 record.
Reddington had entered the game with 989 points in her third full varsity season. She scored the 11 she needed plus one more during the game’s first quarter, hitting the millennium milestone with a basket in the lane with 16.3 seconds remaining in the period on the way to 30, a total she has reached four times this season while averaging 22.6 per game.
Cooperstown, Section III’s reigning Class C girls basketball champion, had ended West Canada Valley’s 2024-25 season with a two-point victory in the sectional semifinals on the way to a state semifinal appearance.
Play was stopped to honor Reddington’s milestone in front of her home crowd as she became the 10th girl and 20th player with 1,000 at West Canada Valley, joining graduated teammates Analyce Grabowski and Reese Fellows, among others.
Reddington’s sister, Aubrey, an eighth-grader in her second varsity season, scored 19 points the night Brooke hit 1,000.
Izzo reaches 1,000 as Little Falls junior
Little Falls junior Adriana Izzo pulled up and hit a short jumper from the right edge of the foul line in a December 15 victory over Herkimer on her home court.
Izzo scored 20 points and grabbed 12 rebounds while becoming the sixth girl in the 1,000-point club at Little Falls and fifth under veteran coach Pam Munger, joining a group that includes former teammate Alexis Kress, now playing at Clarkson University, was the last Mountie to reach 1,000 points in February of 2024, also as a junior and also against Herkimer.
Izzo scored 13 of her points before halftime with the final basket putting her at 1,001 for her career with 43.1 seconds left in the second quarter. The game was the second of nine in a row with 20 or more for Izzo who leads the Mounties with an average of 20.9. She scored 15.0 per game as a freshman and 17.2 last winter, upping that to 20.3 in the season’s final eight games while Kress dealt with an injury.
Izzo and the Mounties (10-8) are on a season-high four-game win streak after winning 39 combined games the last two years.
Trio hits 1,000 across sectional boundaries
Across the sectional boundaries to the east and south, seniors Brooke Trumble at Oppenheim-Ephratah-St. Johnsville, Charlotte Nare of Canajoharie/Fort Plain, and Issy Seamon at Richfield Springs/Owen D. Young have also hit the millennium milestone.
Trumble, the leading scorer (18.2 points per game) for Section II’s Wolves, scored 22 points in a season-opening 63-34 victory over Mekeel Christian Academy in December to reach 1,000.
Playing with her father Horatio coaching, Brooke Trumble is the second girl to score 1,000 points since the merger of the St. Johnsville and Oppenheim-Ephratah districts, joining Rylie Smith 10 years earlier.
Nare also hit 1,000 against Mekeel Christian Academy when scored 28 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a January game.
Seamon, an all-state selection for the combine Richfield Springs/Owen D. Young Eagles’ Section IV soccer championship team in the fall, scored 28 points at Worcester and went over 1,000 in December.
She is the program’s second female 1,000-poimt scorer, following Jessica Seamon, a cousin, who graduated in 1996 and played for the pre-combination and name change Richfield Springs Indians in Section III.
Teammates top 1,000 for unbeaten Hawkeyes
Senior teammates Miles Nelen and Christian Lawson have both hit 1,000 points for the undefeated Cooperstown boys.
The pair combined to score 45 points Thursday when the Class C Hawkeyes completed a 20-0 regular season with a 75-68 win in Utica over Class AAA Proctor.
Nelen, the Section III leader in scoring (28.3 points per game) and three-pointers (77) and 27 points and five threes against Proctor. He hit 1,000 in Cooperstown’s first game of the new calendar year at Morrisville-Eaton January 5, one of his 10 30-point games this season. Nelen scored a career-high 41 points against Faith Heritage of Syracuse in December when he also hit eight three-point shots.
While Nelen missed his sophomore season due to injury, Lawson joined him in the Cooperstown lineup last winter after transferring from Milford. He had scored 489 of his points with the Hawkeyes, and hit 1,000 when he scored 13 in an 86-71 win over the Utica Academy of Science January 21. Lawson scored a Cooperstown-high 24 points earlier in the month at Sauquoit Valley.
McGrath hits milestone while setting career-high
Adirondack junior Ryan McGrath scored a career-high 39 points against Canastota when he hit 1,000 January 27.
That game’s 39 points passed the 38 he scored against West Canada Valley the previous month, and he has five 30-point games this season with five other games of 28 or 29, sparking an average of 25.6 for the 11-7 Wildcats.
This article originally appeared on Times Telegram: Dolgeville junior breaks school record as 1,000-point club keeps growing
Reporting by Jon Rathbun, Herkimer Times Telegram / Times Telegram
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
