Leading off today: La Salle Institute's entire athletics program has been hit with a postseason ban for the 2025-26 school year following a Section II Athletic Council decision on Thursday, Albany-area media reported.
The Athletic Council accepted the recommendation of the section's Executive Committee in response to an investigation into the baseball team and the development was first reported by The Record in Troy.
Section President Matt Stein could not be reached for comment, but The Times Union reported that La Salle Institute President Kevin Calacone confirmed the punishment and said the school plans to appeal the penalty, which includes barring baseball coach Ryan Ruddy from guiding the team in the sectional tournament later this month, to the NYSPHSAA.
This is not La Salle's first recent skirmish with the governing body for Albany-region NYSPHSAA schools. The school is on probation for past violations involving football and girls soccer. The football team was banned from sectionals in 2023 over the use of an ineligible player. In both 2022 and '23, the soccer team was removed from sectionals following similar ineligibility rulings.
At issue this time is the baseball team's preseason trip to South Carolina, where the Cadets participated in a scrimmage that the section determined was impermissible because the team had not yet conducted the NYSPHSAA's minimum required number of practices.
The background:
The official start of the spring season for NYSPHSAA schools this year fell on March 17. The organization's handbook specifies individuals must complete 10 practices before participating in a scrimmage. (The NYSPHSAA voted last week to cut the number to six practices, but that does not take effect until 2026; even that adjustment to the rule would have left La Salle short of the minimum number of pratices.)
Calacone said the baseball team participated in a scrimmage on March 22, after which the school "received notification from Section II asking if we committed a violation of the 10-practice rule."
Calacone contends the section's interpretation of the long-standing rule is wrong.
"The rule says you have to have 10 practices to represent your school," Calacone said. "What it (also) does say in the handbook is a scrimmage is a practice. So, to say you need 10 practices before you can (scrimmage), we didn't feel that was logical. Our answer to Section II is we don't feel this is a violation because we participated in a scrimmage, which is a practice."
Calacone added: "It says you need 10 practices to represent your school, but there is no definition of what that means to represent your school in the NYSPHSAA handbook. Believe me, we looked. We feel this is a biased ruling on a rule that doesn't exist."
My two cents
Barring some sort of disclosure that I cannot even imagine -- I believe I have as good a grasp of the NYSPHSAA Handbook as at least two-thirds of ADs and 90% of superintendents and school presidents -- La Salle is going to get laughed out of the appeal hearing.
From there, the dispute undoubtedly moves to State Supreme Court after a potential detour or two. A year ago, I would have wagered that La Salle will get laughed out of court, too. Given the rulings that came down from the bench in a couple of Long Island cases earlier this year, however, there's a chance the presiding justice goes dumpster-diving into some marginally relevant decision handed down years ago and applies it in La Salle's favor.
I'd much rather see that justice spend his or her time digging through a thesaurus to find various ways to say "ludicrous" and "disingenuous." Those are the words best suited for anyone arguing that scrimmaging does not count as representing your school and scrimmages are just another kind of practice.
As long as we're on the subject, a school that's on probation for breaking eligibility rules three times in just over two years should consider a one-year playoff ban as a sign of a merciful sectional committee.
