Saturday, May 9, 2026: Two arrests following fracas after flag football game

   Leading off today: Two adults were arrested Thursday following a fight with players in the aftermath of a blowout flag football game in Suffolk County.

   The fight occurred around 6:15 p.m. following Wyandanch's 47-0 victory in a home game against Southampton, Newsday reported.

   Shalaya Gatlin, 37, of Shirley, allegedly punched two 16-year-old females, one in the chest and another in the face, and threatened a 15-year-old female, according to police. Meanwhile, the police release stated Jonathan Perez, 35, also of Shirley, allegedly got into a "physical altercation" with a 16-year-old male. He also allegedly threatened people with a knife and to open fire at the school.

   The victims were treated for minor injuries, police told the paper.

   Gatlin was charged with three counts of harassment and three counts of acting in a manner to injure a child. Perez was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, making a threat of mass harm, menacing, harassment and acting in a manner to injure a child. They will be arraigned at a later date, police said.

   In a letter to Section 11 administrators, Wyandanch AD Ty Scarlett said a Southampton player shouted "an inappropriate and unsportsmanlike comment toward the Wyandanch coaching staff" at the end of the game, the paper reported. As the team left the field, that player and the adults escalated the situation, leading to the confrontation.

   A spokeswoman for the Southampton district declined to respond to allegations that the adults involved were linked to their team.

L.I. star makes wrestling history for his homeland

    Long Beach senior Dunia Sibomana-Rodriguez, one of the great inspirational stories in New York scholastic athletics with three NYSPHSAA championships, came up even bigger last weekend.

    The native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo became his country's first wrestler to win gold in the under-20 freestyle African Championships in Alexandria, Egypt, Newsday reported.

    Competing at 125.5 pounds, he reeled off four straight wins while outscoring his opponents 33-1. He capped the title run with a technical fall over Algerian national champion Abderrezak Chenini.

    Two days later, Sibomana-Rodriguez won his three bouts in the senior division, taking on older opponents that included a 51-second tech fall over Cameroon's Roland Tambi Nforsong, a three-time African Senior medalist, in the final.

    At the age of 6, Sibomana-Rodriguez was playing near the village of Rutshuru when chimpanzees attacked him and two family members. His brother and cousin were killed, and Sibomana-Rodriguez was left with horrific injuries to his head and the middle finger on his left hand was bitten off."

Piling up points in lacrosse

    It was a busy week for individual achievements in boys lacrosse.

    On Monday, Skaneateles senior Landen Brunelle piled up nine goals and 15 points, surpassing the previous school mark of 14 by his brother, Grayson Brunelle, in 2023.

    The deluge came in an 18-10 victory vs. Cortland.

    • Blind Brook senior Tyler Taerstein's ninth goal in a 20-8 win over Edgemont on Thursday raised his career total to 411 points, one more than the Section 1 record set by Bronxville's Henry Grass, who graduated in 2015.

    Taerstein also contributed four assists, raising his career numbers to 245 goals and 166 assists.

    • Kobe Genco led Section 6 in scoring a season ago as an Eden/North Collins freshman and is on pace to do it again. He is already Eden's all-time leading scorer in boys basketball, and the question now is whether he will exit the scholastic ranks in 2028 as the state's all-time leader in lacrosse points.

    At 242 goals and 179 assists for 421 points, he is stalking Silver Creek legend Zed Williams, who is No. 1 in goals (444) and points (729).

    The kicker to the story: Williams is Genco's godfather.

Progress update

    We will be releasing the all-state team for Classes AAA, AA, and A in girls basketball at noon on Monday. The final work on the small-school classes continues, and those selections should be available not long afterward.

Following up on the NYSPHSAA meeting

    Though Wednesday's Executive Committee meeting reaffirmed the NYSPHSAA's commitment to sticking with the policy adopted last October, the process for classifying non-public and charter schools may be headed for its first revision -- albeit a small one.

    Section 3 raised a concern at the meeting that might gain traction and result in a vote this fall.

    The 11 sections currently assess the need to move schools up or down in classification on a timeline that allows the NYSPHSAA office to compile the lists and release them at the quarterly meetings. Wednesday's meeting started the 15-day window for sections to review the decisions of their counterparts for the 2026-27 winter sports and submit appeals. In the case of fall sports, a portion of the window falls during school breaks in February.

    Whether it's just for fall sports or for all three seasons, there may be enough sentiment to lengthen the review period.

    • The NYSSWA's Steve Grandin sifted through the section-by-section data to compile the projected boys basketball placements for the 54 private (P) and charter (C) schools.

Section	Type	School	Class	Enrollment
CLASS AAA
2	P	Christian Brothers Academy	AAA	586
2	C	Green Tech	AAA	514
3	P	Bishop Ludden-Grimes	AAA	185
3	P	Christian Brothers Academy	AAA	410
5	P	McQuaid Jesuit	AAA	696
5	C	University Prep	AAA	554
6	C	Health Sciences	AAA	386
8	C	Academy Charter	AAA	444
9	P	Our Lady of Lourdes	AAA	641
CLASS AA
2	P	LaSalle Institute	AA	285
4	P	Seton Catholic	AA	152
5	C	Vertus	AA	666
8	P	Friends Academy	AA	245
CLASS A
1	P	Albertus Magnus	A	309
2	C	KIPP Capital Region	A	162
3	C	Syracuse Academy of Science	A	230
5	P	Aquinas Institute	A	356
5	P	Bishop Kearney	A	198
5	C	Rochester Prep	A	536
6	C	Buffalo Academy of Science	A	419
6	C	Charter for Applied Tech	A	536
6	C	Tapestry	A	261
9	P	Burke Catholic	A	210
CLASS B
1	P	Leffell	B	222
2	P	Saratoga Catholic	B	87
3	C	Utica Academy of Science	B	239
5	P	C.G. Finney	B	122
5	C	Eugenio Maria de Hostos	B	272
5	C	Rochester Academy	B	215
6	C	Global Concepts	B	216
9	P	Mount Academy	B	120
CLASS C
1	P	Keio Academy	C	186
2	P	Notre Dame-Bishop Gibbons	C	113
3	C	Citizenship Science Academy	C	108
3	P	Faith Heritage	C	38
3	P	Notre Dame	C	110
3	C	OnTech	C	161
4	P	Notre Dame	C	114
5	P	Harley/Allendale-Columbia	C	130
5	P	Northstar Christian	C	110
6	C	WNY Maritime	C	210
CLASS D
2	P	Doane Stuart	D	14
2	P	Hawthorne Valley	D	54
2	P	Loudonville Christian	D	44
3	P	Immaculate Heart	D	47
3	P	Manlius-Pebble Hill	D	102
5	P	Houghton	D	51
5	P	Lima Christian	D	33
5	P	Notre Dame	D	95
7	P	Seton Catholic	D	50
9	P	Chapel Field	D	90
11	P	Ross	D	110
11	P	Smithtown Christian	D	77
11	P	St. Pius V	D	30

    The thin ranks in Class AAA demonstrate the difficulty of pulling off one proposed compromise during the recent discussion of private vs. public schools in state championships. Under the hybrid proposal, only those nine schools would be splintered off into their own tournament ("Class 4A" for purposes of the discussion) while the other non-public and charter schools would continue to compete within the existing NYSPHSAA classifications.

    It's even less plausible in football, with just six of the 21 non-public and charter schools falling within the highest class.

    In all the back-and-forth over the two years of discussion/debate, I never saw a viable pathway to making the hybrid model work. Similarly, a total separation resulting in two non-public and charter playoff classes in many sports doesn't work at all.

    Had Section 1 succeeded in forcing a schism, the work required to design and execute the necessary structure would have been daunting.

New Jersey finally adopts shot clock

    It's astonishing to believe, but more than one-third of the country continues to play high school basketball without a shot clock. One more broke ranks with those states on Monday when the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association membership approved use of a 35-second clock starting with the 2027-28 season.

    The vote to become the 33rd state with a shot clock was hardly overwhelming -- 170 to 166 -- and 79 schools with basketball programs did not attend.

    Separately, a proposal for a shot clock in lacrosse failed by 166-149.

    According to reports, many of the votes in opposition in both sports stemmed from concern over the expense of the clocks and finding personnel to operate them.

    "It's the wrong place, and the wrong time," Park Ridge AD Chris Brown said during the discussion before the vote, perhaps unaware that we're now in the 21st Century.