Friday, Oct. 27, 2017: Combined teams dust-up in Sec. 11 lacrosse

   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.

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   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-

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Richburg and Fillmore in the Section 1 girls Class D-1 semifinals on Wednesday.

   The teams battled through 110 minutes of regulation and overtime without settling the matter, resulting in penalty kicks to determine who would advance.

   The teams went through the mandatory five rounds of kicks tied 3-3, making it a sudden-death affair from the point on ... and neither side was in much of a hurry to die. After the goalies matched saves on the first kick, the next three shooters from each scored.

   Zoe Beardsley was next up for Fillmore, but was stopped on the shootouts 19th shot. That brought B-R junior Sydney Root, who was celebrating her birthday Wednesday, to the penalty spot. She converted the kick to give B-R a 7-6 victory.

   B-R, 10-6-3 and the tournament's 11th seed, advances to the final vs. Wheatland-Chili.

   College choices: Archbishop Molloy senior Khalid Moore, honorable mention all-state a season ago, committed to continue his basketball career at Georgia Tech, where friend and former Christ the King guard Jose Alvarado is a freshman this fall.

   another honorable mention, Omar Silverio of St. Raymond, has opted for Santa Clara University. Credit that commitment in no small part to Julius Hodge, a former St. Ray's player now on the Santa Clara staff.

   Extra points: Junior Alisha Lewis has transferred from Delaware girls basketball powerhouse Ursuline to Long Island Lutheran. The 5-foot-6 point guard led her team to the state championship last winter and was selected the state's player of the year by the Delaware Sportswriters and Broadcasters Association.