In three decades, the Jamesville-DeWitt boys lacrosse program has racked up five state championships in Class B. For the near-future, that number will remain at five – at least the Class B part of it.
Due to moves approved by the New York State Public High School Athletic Association last week during meetings at the Turning Stone resort in Verona, J-D will move from Class B to Class C for the 2017 season, and that’s not the only change.
A fourth class will now vie for Section III and state titles, with the creation of Class D. Among the 16 teams moving into that group is Christian Brothers Academy and Manlius-Pebble Hill, while Fayetteville-Manlius and East Syracuse Minoa stay in Class A and B, respectively.
NYSPHSAA’s revised BEDS numbers for the 2016-17 school year are out. In them (which counts enrollment in grades nine through 12), Class A is any school with enrollment 1,050 or higher. Class B covers enrollment of 750 to 1,049, Class C from 425 to 749 and Class D is anyone 425 or lower.
Those numbers now slot J-D into Class C, where it moves along with another long-time lacrosse power, Carthage. They are joined by Cortland, Homer, Whitesboro, Indian River, New Hartford, Marcellus, South Jefferson, Chittenango and Vernon-Verona-Sherrill
F-M, who won the sectional Class A title two of the last three years, is still in Class A, but by a small margin – just eight students. There are just eight Section III schools in the Class A ranks, with Cicero-North Syracuse, Baldwinsville, Liverpool, West Genesee, Syracuse City, Rome Free Academy and Utica Proctor the others.
ESM is one of just six Section III schools now in Class B, with Auburn, Central Square, Fulton, Watertown and Oswego, and its path toward a possible championship grows much clearer without J-D or Carthage to worry about.
Finally, CBA and MPH join the new Class D, but so do other powerhouse programs like Cazenovia, LaFayette, Skaneateles and Westhill. The others include Tully, Onondaga, General Brown, Jordan-Elbridge, Watertown IHC, Lowville, Thousand Islands, Clinton, Holland Patent and Utica-Notre Dame.
What this also does is change the structure of the state tournament. Previously, state semifinals for West (Section III, IV, V and VI) and East regions were all held in a single venue, with three games in one day.
Now those semifinals will go to two venues, with two games held at Cicero-North Syracuse’s Bragman Stadium and the other two at St. John Fisher College near Rochester, also the venue for the state title games for the next three years.
Up until 1986, there was just one state champion for boys lacrosse. Class B was added that year, and J-D won its first state title, with Class C introduced in 2000.
