The PSAL keeps dropping the ball.
After dithering until the very last minute, the Public School Athletic League finally found an arena for Saturday’s semifinal basketball championship games – the gym at Lehman College in The Bronx.
But it only has 800 seats — and at least 100 fans could not get in.
Tickets were sold on a first come, first served basis, and latecomers were literally left out in the cold, forced to stand outside and jockey for a place at a window that overlooked the court when the games they came to see were played..
“It was terrible,” said Theo Edwards, 27, who came from Queens to watch his cousin play for Cardozo. “Security didn’t come out for about an hour to organize the line. There was no organization at all. None.
“I just watched the whole entire game from this window,” Edwards said.
Dennis Buie, who came to watch his son Desure play for Wings Academy, said, “It’s kind of frustrating. That’s my son in there playing. They should have some consideration for the people out here in the cold.”
The players were equally upset.
“They came to support me. If they can’t even get in it kind of sucks,” Malcome Hendrick, 17, who plays shooting guard for Cardozo, said of his family members. “They came to support me and they can’t.”
Next Saturday, Cardozo and Wings will face off in the PSAL finals at an arena that will hopefully be large enough to hold the crowd — Madison Square Garden.