If Paul Kelly was contemplating the 2018-19 prep basketball season for his De La Salle team following losses to Dunham and Holy Cross over the first five days of the season, the Cavaliers’ veteran coach soon discovered the answer.

Will this be the year another member of the Catholic League takes home a Division I basketball championship? Through almost nine decades, local Catholic schools have found much success on the hardwood.

St. Augustine High School’s entrance into the all-white Louisiana High School Athletic Association through a federal court ruling in 1967 was an integral part of the civil rights movement in New Orleans.

St. Katharine Drexel Prep and the Academy of the Sacred Heart served notice that they intend to repeat as the state’s outdoor track and field champions in the spring by sharing the girls’ Division II first-place award at the LHSAA State Indoor Track and Field meet on Feb. 16 at LSU.

Two things you can say about the Louisiana High School Athletic Association holding separate basketball playoffs for Select and non-Select schools are (1) the Select teams have higher seeds when one subtracts the non-Selects, and (2) it really doesn’t matter because Scotlandville’s Hornets have been and still are  the class of the state’s highest classification. That’s been the case for a decade.

Four local Catholic high schools received St. Valentine’s Day gifts from the Louisiana High School Athletic Association: Each other. When the girls’ Division II select playoffs will have begun on Feb. 14, St. Scholastica will be hosting northshore rival Archbishop Hannan, while the Academy of Our Lady opens the bi-district round at home against De La Salle.

So, tell me again why the parents and schoolmates of New Orleans area high school wrestlers had to drive 349 miles for 5 hours, 26 minutes, to Bossier in order to watch their athletes perform in the state wrestling championship tournament?

The final weeks of the District 9-5A boys’ basketball season couldn’t be any more competitive as St. Augustine, Jesuit and Holy Cross battle for a share of the Catholic League championship.

And so the chasm that has separated public from non-public high school athletics grew even deeper on Jan. 25 when a majority of nearly 400 principals voted to allow select schools to take charge of their championship playoff games in four sports.

This is the stage of the basketball season the stars of the game come out to play, and the 10 pieces of the Clarion Herald’s Elite Team begin to fall in place. Well, St. Augustine is making the task a bit difficult to single out the team’s top individuals. It seems the key players are candidates to bump some deserving guy from another area Catholic school from a spot on the team.

 A series of controversial proposals that will appear on the Louisiana High School Athletic Association’s 52-page agenda for the Jan. 23-25 annual convention hit the fan on Monday. Authored by Teurlings Catholic’s crusading principal Michael Boyer, Select schools would determine their playoff formats in the sports of football, basketball and baseball separate and apart from the common playoff system that governs non-select schools. Passage of this proposal is contingent upon principals from Select (non-public schools) approving the proposals. 

The most anticipated event that culminates a sports season is the selection of the coveted All-State team. And the most talked-about by prep hacks is the All-State football team, chosen by a group representing the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. The last of five teams – Class 5A – was published on Jan. 6. It contained 14 players on the offense side and 14 defensive selectees.  And by some ill-conceived, all-inclusive philosophy that declares everyone a winner, the committee went out of its way to pick 93 (count ’em) players for honorable mention.

Mark the dates Jan. 15 and Feb. 8, 2019 down on your games-to-see calendars. On opposite ends of the scorer’s table will stalk two of the city’s premier head basketball coaches whose teams have been in the upper echelon of the Catholic League since their rivalry began in 2012.

From left to right, above: Outstanding Offensive Player St. Paul’s Jack Mashburn was effective passing and rushing

Mount Carmel’s Ellie Holzman, the Outstanding Player of the Division I state volleyball tournament, was one of five Cubs to sign college scholarships last week when she chose the University of Illinois. Also signing were 

The city’s longest running boys’ basketball tournament appears to be heading for a new renaissance. It was evident by the large crowd in the Jesuit gym on Dec. 1 that watched the Allstate Sugar Bowl CYO Basketball Classic’s championship game that there is renewed interest in the early-season games.

The 2018 high school football season is officially over for local Catholic schools.  It ended last Friday when Archbishop Rummel, De La Salle and St. Charles Catholic were eliminated in the Select divisions’ semifinal round.  So, we move indoors just in time for the first of many arctic blasts to come. It’s now basketball season.

St. Paul’s will have its task of repeating as champion of the Allstate Sugar Bowl CYO Basketball Tournament cut out when it joins a lineup of 12 teams for opening night on Nov. 27. The Wolves, winners of two of the last three CYO championships, will begin pursuit  of the classic’s 65th title when they meet Newman at Holy Cross in a 7:30 p.m. Pool D game on Nov. 28, the second day of the classic.  

Ellie Holzman’s departure from the local high school volleyball scene will be a bitter-sweet occasion. Bitter for Mount Carmel, whose side of the net she has ruled since her sophomore season in 2016, and sweet for every opponent on the Cubs’ 2019 schedule.

If Mount Carmel Academy doled out state championship rings, its senior volleyball players who were in the program since the eighth grade, would have to wear the next one on their thumbs.