Long Island championships to be played in baseball, softball and lacrosse this spring

There will be Long Island championships in four team sports this spring.

The sectional directors in Nassau and Suffolk have come up with a schedule that caps the spring season with Long Island title games in boys and girls lacrosse, softball and baseball.

"We finally put together a plan that works for everyone and we’re excited about it," said Tom Combs, the executive director for Section XI, Suffolk’s governing body of interscholastic athletics. "We know how passionate the high school fan base is about their sports and this is another step in the process of getting back to normal."

There were no Long Island championships for the winter sports (played in January and February) because of concerns about the coronavirus and difficulties in scheduling the events. The only fall sport (played in March and April) to have an LIC this year was field hockey.

Boys lacrosse, girls lacrosse and softball will hold Long Island championship games on Saturday, June 19. The rain date for softball is Sunday, June 20. There are no state championships this year.

There will be three softball championships hosted by the Town of Brookhaven at Moriches Athletic Complex on June 19. The Class AA game is scheduled for noon, followed by Class B at 1:30 p.m. and Class A at 3 p.m.

Girls lacrosse will play the four traditional state classifications at Bethpage High School. The Class A game will kick off championships Saturday at 10 a.m., Class B will play at noon, Class C at 2 p.m. and Class D at 4 p.m.

Boys lacrosse also will play in four classifications at East Islip High School. The Class D game will get things started at 10 a.m., Class A will play at 12:30 p.m., Class B at 3 p.m. and Class C at 5:30 p.m.

"The chairmen in the different sports worked very hard to coordinate with Nassau and make this happen," Combs said. "We played a ton of contests in a short period of time this spring and to their credit, they were able to add the Long Island championship games to cap off a very successful season."

Baseball moved away from the traditional five state classifications for this year. Instead, there will be six conference titles at stake. Suffolk baseball chairman Ryan Cox secured St. Joseph’s College in East Patchogue for three of the six championship games on Sunday, June 20. Suffolk will host conferences 1, 3 and 5 at times to be announced. Nassau will hold the title games in conferences 2, 4 and 6 on June 20 at a site to be announced. There is no makeup date for baseball.

"It’s a big step in the direction of what we know to be normal," said Pat Pizzarelli, executive director of Section VIII, which governs all of Nassau’s school athletics. "We’ve been working on this for quite some time. It’ll bring the spring season to a close in a very exciting and positive atmosphere, especially for the spring teams, which didn’t have a season in 2020 at the start of the pandemic."

Pizzarelli said there will be no Long Island championships for girls golf or track but added that a championship match in boys tennis is still possible.

"Tennis could still put it together, but it’s not scheduled yet," Pizzarelli said. "We know how things change these days, so they might pull it together."

By Gregg Sarra

gregg.sarra@newsday.com@Gregg_Sarra

Gregg Sarra is Newsday's high school sports editor and has been on the beat since the mid-1980s.