Leading off today: As many as 72 PSAL basketball teams face forfeits for their opening games this season after missing a newly imposed deadline for submitting their rosters.
As reported first by Chalkbeat, 46 girls and 26 boys teams at the varsity or JV levels are affected because they did not declare their rosters by the Nov. 18 deadline. In past years, coaches had until a week before their opening game to upload the information.
The roster declaration is an extension of last year's measures as a new administration in the governing body for New York City school sports found multiple instances of schools not adhering to age limits and other eligibility standards. That even triggered the cancellation of a championship game
There may have been some confusion on the part of coaches and school administrators since league schedules don't start until Dec. 3. Some schools with non-league contests scheduled beginning next week appeared to miss the deadline by as little as one day.
Chalkbeat reported the PSAL is working to reinstate the first game for penalized teams who filed shortly after the deadline and met other requirements.
"They have bigger fish to fry in the PSAL than coaches who got a roster up 24 hours late," Franklin D. Roosevelt boys coach Glenn Thomas told The New York Post. "The ones getting hurt most are our kids."
There is a financial aspect to the forfeitures. Longtime Benjamin Cardozo boys coach Ron Naclerio told the paper coaches can lose four hours of pay per forfeit, amounting to around a $250 hit.
My take on the PSAL crackdown
According to the Chalkbeat report, PSAL officials said they communicated the new roster deadline to schools on 10 occasions, including virtual and in-person meetings, emails, and Google Classroom messages.
That's about eight more warnings than they should have needed, especially in the new era that was ushered in before the 2023-24 school year with changes at the top of the PSAL administration.
No less an authority figure than David Banks, chancellor of New York City schools, lauded the PSAL's new no-nonsense approach last March after the Thomas Jefferson boys team was thrown out of the 4A playoffs, triggering a ripple effect capped by the cancellation of the title game after South Shore was found to be out of compliance.
In light of that, how could any coach or school-level administrator not take the new rules to heart?
On the other hand, I'm sympathetic to the point some coaches and ADs raised about the difficulty of finalizing rosters when some athletes haven't finished the fall sports season and schools have to compile paperwork documenting physical exams and parental permission even before weeding through transcripts for transfer students who may have used up their eligibility or aged out.
In a perfect world, the PSAL might be best served by declaring victory and offering a one-time amnesty. Teams should still be required to submit the necessary information at least a week before their opener, and all those that do would have the forfeit scrubbed from the books.
At this juncture, the PSAL has made itself abundantly clear that it will no longer tolerate chicanery, and no team going forward can claim ignorance of a rule about which 10 warnings had already been given.
Corning shakes up the Class AA football bracket
Proverbial jaws may have hit the floor last weekend when Elmira upset Corning, 31-14, in the Section 4 Class AA football final. The Express had lost eight straight to Corning, including three sectional finals since 2019.
The win leveled Elmira's record at 5-5 but sentenced the team to a state quarterfinal date with Syracuse CBA that ended predictably: The Brothers rolled to a 63-12 victory on Saturday.
However, the season was not over for Corning, because this year is the Southern Tier section's turn to fill the NYSPHSAA tournament wildcard spots in Class AA and A. That gave Corning a matchup -- and a less imposing challenge -- vs. Monroe-Woodbury in this weekend's quarterfinals.
Corning made the most of the opportunity by earning a 26-13 win to advance to the semifinals next week against Albany CBA. According to the NYSSWA's Steve Grandin, who keeps track of such things, that outcome marked just the second time in 13 attempts that a wildcard has won its quarterfinal.
Since wildcards were introduced in 2019 to fill out quarterfinal brackets in 11-man football, only Rye (a 31-21 winner over Minisink Valley in Class A in 2021) had capitalized on the opportunity.
Brighton keeps on rolling
Brighton High School is officially my favorite story of the high school football season. The Bruins earned their first Section 5 championship last weekend with a 28-7 victory over Canandaigua in Class A.
For at least half the season now, Brighton (11-0) has been the lowest-ranked playoff-eligible team in any class in the weekly New York State Sportswriters Association rankings. The Bruins entered this weekend's state quarterfinals ranked 10th in Class A, then promptly beat No. 11 Sweet Home, 48-14.
In the interest of full disclosure, I'm pretty much the reason Brighton has been a tad under-appreciated. Though Steve Grandin compiles the rankings based on input from our network of correspondents across the state, I'm the guy providing weekly updates from Section 5.
Believe me, I have no grudge against Brighton or issue with the football program. In fact, Steve Lian has been on my "plus-one" coaches list for quite some time. That means he's always a candidate to eke out one more win per season than the talent on the roster might suggest in August.
Rather, the issue is that Class A was impossibly deep in Section 5 this year. When I submitted my first weekly recommendations on Sept. 15, I couldn't justify ranking Brighton ahead of Canandaigua, Monroe, East/World of Inquiry or Irondequoit. As recently as Oct. 5, those four teams owned a combined 17-3 record -- East/WOI had lost to Syracuse CBA and Monroe had setbacks vs. East/WOI and Canandaigua.
Methodically, Brighton has been picking contenders off since. First came a 14-6 victory over Irondequoit, then Brighton topped Monroe by 21-20 in the sectional semifinals. The win over Canandaigua followed.
Next up for the Bruins is the NYSPHSAA semifinals and a matchup with No. 5 Whitesboro (12-0) on Friday at Vestal High School.
