Another sectional football championship game in New York State has been thrown into chaos as a result of a ruling over player eligibility.
Meanwhile, a team that was previously forced to forfeit its spot in a championship game has dropped its appeal after heading to court seeking emergency relief to have its berth in a title game restored.
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Thursday night, Delaware Academy announced that it had been forced to forfeit its Section 4 Class D semifinal win over Deposit/Hancock from this past weekend, removing the state’s No. 2-ranked Class D team from its spot in a sectional final this weekend.
In a letter posted to the district’s Facebook page, Delaware Academy Central School District at Delhi Superintendent Carey Shultz wrote that Section 4 had ruled the Bulldogs must forfeit their semifinal win and the remainder of their 2026 season “due to a sectional eligibility rule we were unaware of.”
In the letter, Shultz said that the ruling came in the wake of a similar issue that occurred elsewhere in the state. Earlier this week, the Middletown football team was forced to forfeit its semifinal win in the Section 9 Class AA playoffs and removed from its spot in a sectional championship game after using an ineligible player.
“Prompted by recent news from another school within New York State, the district was reviewing its readiness for the upcoming sectional final when we learned our team would not be able to advance,” Shultz wrote. “Section IV’s ruling is based on its eligibility requirements for teams entering sectional play.”
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Under state rules, football players must be considered an eligible participant for a minimum of three regular season games to be eligible for postseason competition
Delaware Academy had a 9-1 record following its 49-14 semifinal win over Deposit/Hancock and had been scheduled to play Tioga in the sectional final. In his letter, Shultz noted that the Delaware Academy district has filed an appeal of Section 4’s decision and that the championship game has been pushed back to Sunday “to allow time for the appeal to be reviewed.”
In a follow-up letter posted Friday afternoon on the district’s Facebook page, Shultz wrote that Section 4 upheld its original decision, but noted that the district “is in the process of pursuing future remedies,” and has requested assistance through state Sen. Peter Oberacker’s office while also making an additional appeal through the New York State Public High School Athletic Association.
Meanwhile, according to reports from multiple media outlets, the Enlarged City School District of Middletown withdrew its petition to get its spot in Saturday’s Section 9 Class AA championship game against Newburgh Free Academy restored following a hearing Friday in state Supreme Court in Orange County.
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The Middie Bears had a perfect 10-0 record after their 48-15 semifinal victory over Valley Central this past weekend, but were removed from the postseason earlier this week when they were forced to forfeit that game due to using an ineligible player.
According to court documents, the unnamed player in question was a member of the Middletown boys’ soccer program who joined the football program as a kickoff specialist late in the season. The player appeared in one regular-season game and was listed as an eligible participant – but was not in uniform – for another, then appeared in the sectional semifinal.
The Middletown district, which referred to the issue as an “unintentional adult error in understanding the rules” in a letter posted to the district website, had a waiver request denied by Section 9 and an appeal denied by NYSPHSAA. Local officials weighed in with letters of support, and a Change.org petition started in support of the Middletown team had nearly 6,500 signatures as of late Friday morning.
On Wednesday, the district filed a petition in state Supreme Court in Orange County seeking emergency relief. The hearing was held Friday before Judge Verris B. Shako.
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NYSPHSAA, in its response to the petition, noted that Middletown athletic director Justin Sturge was in attendance at a mandatory workshop for Section 9 athletic directors earlier this year where the rule “was clearly explained,” and that a Monroe County court upheld the rule in a similar case in 2014 when Aquinas Institute was forced to forfeit its spot in the Section 5 postseason when a quarterback who had only participated in two games prior to sectional playoffs was ruled ineligible.
Valley Central and Newburgh Free Academy are now set to play for the Section 9 Class AA championship on Saturday at noon at Monroe-Woodbury final. The Section 9 champion will play the Section 2 Class AA champion – either Saratoga Springs or CBA – in the regional playoffs next week.
A third sectional championship game that had been in doubt, the Section 5 Class B game between Honeoye Falls-Lima and East/World of Inquiry School, will proceed as scheduled on Saturday despite prior concerns that East/World of Inquiry would be forced to forfeit in the wake of a bench-clearing incident after the final whistle of its semifinal win over James Monroe.
Section 5 officials announced Wednesday that, following an investigation by the Rochester City School District and a review by both Section 5 and NYSPHSAA, multiple East/WOIS players “were misidentified as a disqualified player.” East/WOIS will face Honeoye Falls-Lima for the sectional title on Saturday at 3 p.m. at St. John Fisher University.
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This article originally published at Delaware Academy removed from Section 4 football final over player eligibility; Middletown drops appeal ahead of Section 9 final.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
