Varsity News: Public vs. private, breaking down the numbers

This story originally appeared in the Globe’s high school sports newsletter, Varsity News. Click here to sign up and get it in your inbox each Wednesday

Welcome to Varsity News: Summer Edition, where we’re still coming down from the excitement of watching two Massachusetts products selected in the first round of the NBA Draft on Tuesday night.

First off was Brockton’s AJ Dybantsa, who became the first Bay State product taken No. 1 overall since Cambridge’s Patrick Ewing 41 years ago. Dybantsa, who attended Davis Elementary School before spending a season at St. Sebastian’s, was picked by the Wizards after a stellar freshman year at BYU.

Nearly bookending the draft was Southborough’s Alex Karaban, a four-year stalwart at UConn who won two national titles and was taken 29th overall, intially by the Cavaliers who flipped him to the Kings. Karaban played his freshman year at Algonquin.

While they have wildly different games, and their college experiences were quite disparate, they’re both 6-foot-8-inch wings with real shooting touch who played for multiple elite prep programs (Prolific Prep and Utah Prep for Dybantsa, New Hampton and IMG Academy for Karaban).

In addition, Ebuka Okorie became the highest-drafted player ever out of New Hampshire when the 19-year-old Stanford guard went No. 17 to the Thunder, who then traded him to the Pistons. The Nashua native and former Brewster star will team up in Detroit with fellow Granite Stater Duncan Robinson.

During Wednesday’s second round, keep an eye out for guard Aaron “AK” Nkrumah, a former Worcester South and Worcester State standout who had an excellent season for Tennessee State.

There’s currently no bigger hot-button issue in Massachusetts high school sports than the public vs. private debate. And by privates, we really mean parochials.

What has always been an undercurrent of frustration seems to be cresting with the possible introduction of a Super 8 for football, which has one last hurdle to clear in August before becoming a reality in 2027.

But how dominant were the Catholic schools really?

We broke down the numbers.

The MIAA crowned 120 state champions during the 2025-26 school year. How many would you guess were won by Catholic schools? Thirty? Twenty? How about 15. That’s 12.5 percent, leaving 87.5 percent, or 105, for the publics (including four titles claimed by charter schools).

It’s certainly fair to point out that Catholic schools make up only about 5 percent of the 385 member schools in the MIAA, so they’re winning at a higher rate than the average member school.

But 15 out of 120 does not constitute a crisis.

Even when looking at championships won by each league, the Catholic Conference is not an outlier. The Bay State led with 13 titles, while the Dual County, Hockomock, and South Shore leagues all claimed 10 championships, ahead of the CC’s nine crowns.

Of course, it’s more an issue in some sports than others — 30 percent of the basketball titles and 25 percent of the football Super Bowls were won by Catholic schools — and it’s focused in Division 1, where the football, baseball, boys’ basketball, boys’ ice hockey, boys’ lacrosse, coed wrestling, boys’ golf, boys’ rugby, boys’ swimming, and the boys’ indoor and outdoor track titles were all claimed by Catholic schools. Opposing D1 boys’ programs are allowed to cry foul, especially when you consider the football, boys’ basketball, baseball, and boys’ hockey finals were all-Catholic affairs.

But for everyone else, it should be a nonissue: Catholic schools won just four state championships outside of D1 boys.

Some other fun facts from crunching the championship data:

The ‘W’ stood for ‘Wins’ for Walpole and Weston, the only schools to capture four state titles during the 2025-26 season.

Walpole claimed the girls’ golf, D2 girls’ lacrosse, D3 boys’ outdoor track, and D1 field hockey crowns, while Weston was all about speed with D5 boys’ outdoor track, D4 girls’ indoor track, D4 girls’ swimming, and D3 boys’ tennis titles.

Claiming three titles were: Canton, Cohasset, King Philip, Lexington, and St. John’s Prep, while 17 schools won a pair. In all, 87 schools claimed at least one title. Twenty-four schools won multiple times, 19 of which were publics.

Behind the five leagues that won nine or more championships was a cluster of conferences with five titles: Patriot, South Coast, and Tri-Valley, while the Merrimack Valley, Middlesex, and Cape Ann all won four. The Catholic Central, Boston City League, and Commonwealth all won three, the Cape & Islands won two, and the Mayflower and Northeastern claimed one each.

Athletes of the Week: Lexington’s Ainsley Cuthbertson and Catholic Memorial’s Amar Skeete

Amid the busiest 24 hours of her season, Lexington senior Ainsley Cuthbertson thrived. For the Alabama-bound thrower, it started Friday morning with the hammer throw at the under-20 US outdoor championships in Eugene, Ore., where she smashed her own Massachusetts record of 179 feet, 0 inches while finishing sixth.

She then flew to Philadelphia, arriving at her hotel room at 3 a.m. before stepping into the circle at the New Balance Outdoor Nationals at 11:30 a.m. That didn’t stop her from producing a national championship and improving on her Massachusetts record with a throw of 180-04 to win by nearly three feet.

Catholic Memorial junior Amar Skeete completed an undefeated season in the triple jump by leaping 50 feet, 7.25 inches at New Balance Nationals, claiming a national title by nearly a foot over runner-up Ashton Thomas of Webster, N.Y. Skeete owns the state record in the event at 51 feet, 2 inches, set at this year’s Meet of Champions.

Honorable mentions: Cohasset junior Nicholas Askjaer and Oliver Ames junior Mitchell Callender went 1-2 in the boys’ shot put at New Balance Nationals, with Askjaer winning with a 64-1 throw to best Callendar (62-8.5). Askjaer also finished fifth in the nation in the discus (196-6) . . . Westford senior Abby Hennessy finished second in the mile at New Balance, eclipsing the meet record with a 4:33.18 time that trailed only Mallory Weller of Fort Wayne, Ind. (4:31.78) . . . The Westford girls’ distance medley broke a 16-year-old state record on Sunday, as Hennessy teamed up with Emily Wedlake, Emily Deeks, and Diya Shrestha to clock an 11:36.71 finish, easily besting the old mark (11:44.77) and finishing second in the nation . . . The Lexington girls’ mile relay broke a 17-year-old state record while placing fourth in 20:20.53, topping the old mark of 20:23.30 . . . Abington junior Aiden Calcano Da Silva placed third in the nation in the 400-meter hurdles (51.96), Newburyport senior Michael Mohoric was fourth in the boys’ mile (4:04.55) and Wayland senior Ryan McCormack finished fifth in the decathlon with 6,643 points.

There’s no fresh video this week, so let’s rip through some recent Division 1 signings:

Xaverian senior wide receiver Christian McIntyre will play at Ohio after a post-grad year at Avon Old Farms (Conn.)

Xaverian junior linebacker Michael Harden Jr., the stepson of Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla, has committed to play at Boston College.

Lawrence Academy junior Camilo Lopes, who started his career at Bridgewater-Raynham, is headed to Army West Point to play football.

Tabor junior Dominic Maser, an offensive lineman from Duxbury, is committed to BC, although Catholic Memorial four-star sophomore wide receiver Ramar Thomas announced he is decommitting from BC and reopening his recruitment.

Nobles junior Cole Henebry, a Medfield resident, announced his commitment to play baseball at Northeastern, and Walpole junior shortstop Shane Harrington is bound for UMass Lowell.

Medfield sophomore Devon Weafer committed to play women’s soccer at Florida, and Hopkinton sophomore Riley Colleran and Concord-Carslisle sophomore Catherine Kilmartin verbally committed to play women’s soccer at BC.

Former Taunton standout Sam Lincoln is transferring from Texas Tech to Texas, the team that beat her in the Women’s College World Series final.

With a 10-9 vote from tournament management, MIAA Super 8 football playoff one step closer to reality

The proposal, featuring a nine-game regular season, eight playoff teams per division, and a 1A tournament for Divisions 1-2, will be reviewed by the board of directors in August.

This was the hardest week of the spring to choose the best image from our student photojournalists latest gallery, which highlights the best photos from across the spring season, and boy are there some beauts.

We almost went with Nate Havemeyer’s image of Newton North tennis player Alex Fine, Peter Looby’s gorgeous sunset image of Newton South boys’ lacrosse, or Calder Troutman’s moment of impact from a Somerset Berkley boys’ lacrosse game, but in the end we enjoyed the uniqueness of Jack Wronski’s image of sailors Claire Vergoni and Rebecca Schaefer celebrating while crossing the finish line at the Cape & Islands girls’ invitational.

Check out all the amazing pictures from the spring:

Best of high school sports photographers: 2026 spring season

Trivia

Which school claimed the most spring 2026 championships? Email [email protected] with the answer and we’ll shout out those who get it right in next week’s edition.

Plan your week

No MIAA games until September, but mark your calendars for Friday, July 10 when the Globe’s spring All-Scholastics are published at Globe.com/Schools. A special All-Scholastic print edition will be inserted in the Sunday, July 12 paper.