Sorry I couldn’t get to this until now but I was at a lacrosse tripleheader yesterday. The conferences have met to determine scheduling for next season.

Each conference held a seperate meeting to vote on the procedures they wanted, which is why some are playing each other twice, some are playing each other once, and some are playing each other twice but only counting it once. Remember, the leagues also had different rules last year (Leagues 3/4 crossed over and had 19 league games, while Leagues 1 and 2 didn’t), so it’s not precedent-setting.

Here is the updated setup:

Conferences I and III: Teams will play everyone in their league home and away. There are no mandatory crossovers with other conferences, and no other games will count in the league standings.

Conference II: Teams will play everyone in their league one time. Also no mandatory crossovers.

Conference IV: Teams will play everyone in their league once, and those five games will count toward the league championship. All teams except Suffern will then go through the league again.

Some more tidbits: Teams must have a winning percentage of 25 to qualify, so more schools should make the postseason (based on last year, Clarkstown South, Byram Hills and Nyack/Tappan Zee and possibly Greeley would have qualified instead of missing out). However, it hasn’t yet been determined whether the winning percentage includes all games, league games, division games or some combination.

The other big issue is seeding. Apparently there’s a formula that all sports in Section 1 will be using. I don’t have the details yet, but I know that Section 1 coordinator John Orlando, New Rochelle coach Jim Tozzo, and an AD from each conference will form the seeding committee.

Unfortunately I have to take another furlough (unpaid leave) this quarter, so I will be out from June 1-7. Same rules as last time: no blogging, no e-mails, no phone calls. I look forward to posting more about next season when I return.

Division II just got a little deeper. Sleepy Hollow/Irvington has declined in enrollment (not sure which school is at fault) and are now in Division II. Goalie Dylan Lacey and top defenseman Craig Halpin are gone, but barring transfers, pretty much everyone else will return to the Legends, who went 16-4-2 and tied White Plains last season.

Here’s the official enrollment numbers for the upcoming year. Remember, even if the state votes to standardize division alignments state-wide (right now each section can do it however they want), it wouldn’t take effect until the 2010-11 season.

Division I (15 teams)
New Rochelle 2558
North Rockland 2159
Mount Pleasant 1829
White Plains 1737
Lakeland/Panas 1561
Nyack/Tappan Zee 1494
Rye Town/Harrison 1349
Mahopac 1298
Eastchester/Tuckahoe/Bronxville 1216
Carmel 1160
Clarkstown South 1155
Clarkstown North 1150
Suffern 1139
Scarsdale 1090
Mamaroneck 1088

Division II (14 teams)
Somers/North Salem 1055
Sleepy Hollow/Irvington 1053
Ossining 1046
Yorktown 1033
Fox Lane 988
Greeley 981
John Jay 964
Kennedy/Putnam Valley 913
Brewster 905
Pawling/Dover 765
Rye 646
Pearl River 638
Byram Hills 604
Pelham 568

Also, here are the tentative tournament dates. (update 5/29: The dates have been moved back one day, and Saturday is now a make-up day)

First round
DI Sunday 2/21
DII Monday 2/22

Quarterfinals
DI Tuesday 2/23
DII Wednesday 2/24

Semifinals
DI Thursday 2/25
DII Friday 2/26

Finals
DI and DII Sunday 2/28

Regionals
DI and DII Saturday 3/6 at Section 1

State semifinals and finals
Saturday 3/13-Sunday 3/14

I hope to post later this week after the scheduling committee meets and determines what they’re doing about league play this year (how many times around the league, and whether there will be mandatory crossovers).