NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 19: A basketball sits on the court during a break in the action between the Brooklyn Nets and the Philadelphia 76ers during preseason action at the Barclays Center on October 19, 2012 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. The 76ers defeated the Nets 106-76. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

What’s a girl without a basketball team to do? For one 13-year-old girl in New Jersey, the answer seemed simple — play on the boys team.

However, the Archdiocese of Newark doesn’t see it the same way, and barred her from playing for the boys team because it was against the rules of the catholic school she has been attending.

The church’s position has been that allowing Sydney Phillips to bend the rules would mean that they would then have to bend the rules for every other person who comes up with a special case, according to the New York Post:

“We have rules or we don’t, the Archdiocese’s lawyer Chris Westrick said. “If we have to break rules for the Phillips family, we have to break rules for everybody.”

“What we have here is a situation where people don’t want to be bound by the rules that everybody else is bound by,” Westrick told the judge.

The judge, Donald Kessler, agreed with the thoughts of the Archdiocese and refused to grant a preliminary injunction, allowing Sydney to play on the boys team while this legal battle is fought.

In his ruling, the judge noted that a change like this would be a change to the “status quo” and that allowing her to play on the boys team wasn’t a “circumstance which now does exist.”

Of course, this is something that could be dealt with for the next school season, with a change in the rules as they stand today.

As for any hope of a discrimination-based lawsuit, the judge also threw out that notion by noting the protected status of the church under New Jersey state law.

[New York Post]

About Andrew Coppens

Andy is a contributor to The Comeback as well as Publisher of Big Ten site talking10. He also is a member of the FWAA and has been covering college sports since 2011. Andy is an avid soccer fan and runs the Celtic FC site The Celtic Bhoys. If he's not writing about sports, you can find him enjoying them in front of the TV with a good beer!