Catholic Schools Dominate Publics in NYSPHSAA Girls’ Tourneys
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By Ray Gallagher, Examiner Sports Editor @Directrays
We’re going to make this short but sweet. Well, maybe a tad prickly.
For much of the last 35 years, we’ve been harping in this space on the issue of the Catholic and private schools participating in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) tournaments. Most notably basketball, where all it takes is five or six above-average student athletes from a multiregional city or suburb to destroy the hopes and dreams of small-town, public school athletes battling day in and day out for their moment in the sun.
And 35 years later, we still know an injustice when we see one, but it continues to fall on deaf ears, mostly because the private schools won a lawsuit decades ago and nobody wants to upset the apple cart for fear of speaking out and getting canceled, despite the best interests of the students in our public school districts.
The Catholics and privates will stand by their old adage: “We don’t recruit.” But we all know that a) they don’t have to because parents will send their kids to the best schools and situations possible if they can afford to, and b) stop peeing on my leg and telling me it’s raining. Of course they recruit, and there’s nothing wrong with that given the current situation, but we shouldn’t continue to turn a blind eye to a fair and level playing field, which we do more often than not.
Section 1’s Putnam Valley High School girls’ basketball team, a borderline Class B/C school near and dear to my heart, had its hopes dashed and crashed in Friday’s 57-47 NYSPHSAA Class B semifinal loss at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy to Section 3 champion Utica-Notre Dame, a Catholic school with its expansive region from which to accept the best of the best, who also provide ample opportunities for financial aid and scholarships.
Putnam Valley athletes get no financial aid, no scholarships and hail from a fairly rural radius from the Town of Cortlandt border to Roaring Brook. And guess who Notre Dame defeated for the state’s Class B public school title. Yup, Section 2’s Albany Academy for Girls, an independent college prep school. Two schools, a Catholic and a private, that clearly have mostly geographical advantages over the public schools, competing for the state public school title.
And then, to boot, reigning state Class A champion Walter Panas was upended by yet another Catholic school, Section 2’s Catholic Central Crusaders (nothing public school-ish about that name), in a crushing 64-62 setback in Saturday’s NYSPHSAA Class A title tilt.
Someone, please explain to me how Panas, the best public school in the NYSPHSAA tournament, is denied a once-in-a-lifetime experience to go back-to-back as public school state champs while losing to a Catholic school. Bear in mind, I’m Catholic, but ticked off just the same that Panas and Put Valley were put in this unfortunate position.
Section 9’s Kingston got beat by a virtual basketball charter school, Section 2’s eventual state champ Green Tech (Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, Troy) in the AAA boys’ semis in Glens Falls. Peekskill lost to Our Lady of Lourdes in the boys’ state AA regionals. The Lourdes girls’ program won the state title in Class AAA over Section 3’s Liverpool, and Albertus Magnus won by 17 in the girls’ AA finals.
In sum, four of the five NYSPHSAA girls’ basketball titles were won by Catholic schools, and we can go on and on with historical examples of basketball blasphemy. So I ask, where will it end?
Unfortunately, it won’t, but we’ll continue to tell the children we have their best interests at heart, even though we know we don’t. Years ago, the state tried to remedy the situation by reclassifying certain Catholic school powerhouses like the Albertus Magnus girls’ hoops team – ironically the 2024 public school state champs – to Class AA, but when you leave that up to each
individual section, you’re slapping a wet Band-aid on a gaping hemorrhage.
Catholic schools in New York only accept Catholic schools in its Catholic High School Athletic Association Tournament, which is their virtuous prerogative, but NYSPHSAA accepts the Catholics and the privates in the public school tournaments, which they often dominate before moving on to the Federations. Make it make sense, please.
“I think all private schools should be reclassified (to AA/AAA), but each section classifies their own privates, so they often place them in the classes that benefit them,” Putnam Valley Superintendent Dr. Jeremy Luft said. “There’s nothing we can do about it despite how much we complain about it.”
Ain’t that the truth! Some 35 years later, young public school athletes are still being deprived a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by folks that are supposed to have their best interest at heart #JustStinks.
Ray has 33 years experience covering and photographing local sports in Westchester and Putnam counties, including everything from Little League/Travel Baseball to varsity high school prep sports and collegiate coverage. He has been a sports editor at Examiner Media since its inception in 2007.
Visit Ray’s author bio page for more details. Also read Ray’s archived work here and his Direct Rays column here.
