Leading off today: If you think lacrosse parents are raising a ruckus regarding the 2018 season, just wait until 2019 arrives.
As explained by The Suffolk Times on Friday, Mattituck administrators are dropping Greenport from the existing combined team for boys varsity lacrosse that also includes Southold. It ends an arrangement that has existed since 2010 and places Mattituck/Southold in Class D for the Section 11 tournament.
That's no small matter since Class D in Suffolk County has only two other teams bidding to make it to the NYSPHSAA tournament.
The matter was raised at Thursday's Mattituck school board meeting, with several people expressing disappointment over the change in the combined team arrangement. Charlie Anderson, the school board vice president, said the decision was the result of a recommendation from the athletic directors of each school.
Last year, the New York State Public High School Athletic Association added a fourth class to its tournament, and that Class D has an enrollment ceiling of 424. Combining with both of the other schools last spring made little difference to Mattituck since either would have pushed the combined team into Class C but bringing both aboard would not have pushed the program up to Class B.
However, drops in BEDS numbers for all three in the current year changed the dynamics. By combining with only Southold, they keep the enrollment figure at 416 and drop the team to Class D under NYSPHSAA rules.
The class cutoffs are higher in girls lacrosse, so the three-school combined team (which lost to Bronxville in the 2016 state semifinals) can remain in Class D next spring.
Near the end of the story is a mention that Mattituck school board President Laura Jens-Smith said the combined teams are re-evaluated each year.
By my calculations, that's when the real consternation begins. That's because a vote this past summer by the NYSPHSAA Central Committee changed the formula for calculating enrollment numbers for combined teams effective with the 2018-19 school year.
If I'm reading the numbers correctly, Mattituck has only had to count 30 percent of the enrollment of its combined teams partners up until now. For the 2019 lacrosse season, though, they will have to count 100 percent. Unless they opt to go it alone, Mattituck will at a minimum find itself back in Class C. And restoring the full Mattituck/Southold/Greenport alliance might squeeze the combined team all the way up to Class B.
Good luck with that.
Not-so-sudden death: We tend to get one of these a year during soccer sectionals, and this time it involved Bolivar-
