Old Lyme – The game is a sham.

Fraudulent.

Inequitable.

But it’s going to be played Saturday in Middletown, for a girls’ soccer state championship, because no governing body in the history of the world practices benign neglect better than the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference.

Straight up: choice school Immaculate of Danbury and public school Old Lyme should never play for the same trophy. In any sport. But they will at 3 p.m. Saturday. If history repeats, Immaculate will defeat Old Lyme in the postseason for the 10th time since 1992.

And yet they keep playing each other.

Immaculate, per the Diocese of Bridgeport website, attracts kids from 28 different towns and two states: Connecticut and New York.

Old Lyme’s kids come from Lyme and Old Lyme.

Perhaps we can fathom more glaring examples of competitive disadvantage, although let’s face it: We’d need a head start.

The CIAC defines “schools of choice” as those that enroll “more than 25 gender-specific students from out of district.” The CIAC Boys’ Basketball Committee adjusted its state tournament divisions a few years ago because of inherent advantages schools of choice own over public schools, whose enrollments remain confined to town borders.

Immaculate vs. Old Lyme, an egregious example of inequity, suggests it’s time the CIAC encouraged all sports under its auspices to make necessary adjustments, starting with removing all schools of choice from Class S.

This is about equity, the CIAC’s single most significant objective.

Lest we forget the difference between “equity and “equality.” Equity is a fair baseline. Equality is where everybody is the same and has an equal amount of achievement. Equity — the same opportunity to achieve — is the ultimate objective. Equality — everybody achieves the same — is impossible.

Hence, if the CIAC is truly serious about equity, it will reevaluate the way divisions are designated in every sport, beginning with girls’ soccer, where Immaculate belongs in a different division.

The CIAC operates on the flawed hypothesis that equity manifests itself through enrollment numbers. Per the CIAC’s rationale, if Immaculate and Old Lyme have roughly the same number of girls, they should occupy the same division. Except that enrollment numbers aren't nearly as significant as how they are amassed.

If Immaculate draws kids from 28 different towns and two states and Old Lyme draws from two towns and one state, Immaculate has the perpetual competitive advantage. The schools do not belong in the same division because they do not play by the same rules.

Immaculate has won 12 state girls’ soccer titles. Ten times in Class S, defeating 10 small public schools whose talent pools do not stretch across 28 towns and two states. Immaculate won the Class L title in 2014 and the Class M title in 2016.

And it was allowed to move back to Class S for what reason, exactly?

“I just don’t think it’s a level playing field,” Old Lyme coach Paul Gleason said Wednesday, preparing his team for what could be its fourth straight state title, the previous three of which came with Immaculate elsewhere. “It’s not fair for all the small schools in Class S. Choice schools should not be in Class S. It’s not fair.”

Gleason, a choice school graduate (St. Paul of Bristol) is perfectly willing to engage anyone from CIAC in this discussion. It probably wouldn’t be a fair fight. He’d give the Dos Equis Guy a run for Most Interesting Man In The World.

He speaks English, Spanish, Polish and Zulu. He majored in marine biology and invertebrate zoology, earned a soccer scholarship to Oregon State. He is modern day Fred Sanford, running a junkyard in Quaker Hill. He once worked in Mexico as a charter boat captain, accumulated 30 years' worth of lobster data as a marine scientist and has won three state titles at Old Lyme. He uses words like “erudite,” “proselytize” and “perspicacity” like we use “and” and “the.”

And he’s quite serious when he says Old Lyme will no longer schedule schools of choice in girls’ soccer.

“If we’re all really as adamant as we should be about the advantages schools of choice have, then we should stop scheduling them,” he said. “I also believe that until the CIAC takes this issue seriously in all sports, we should begin talks about starting a new conference. Get out of the CIAC. Start a public school conference. It wouldn’t be hard to do. Plenty of teams would play. So many public school officials are ticked off about the inequity anyway. This is just not right.”

It should be noted that Immaculate’s field hockey team is also in the Class S finals Saturday. The Mustangs eliminated Stonington in the semifinals earlier this week. Stonington, whose kids come from one town and one state. Not 28 towns and two states.

Adjusting state tournament divisions in every sport requires time, organization and effort, not exactly a trifecta for which CIAC officials are known. But the time has come for other sports to mimic boys’ basketball.

Immaculate and Old Lyme do not belong on the same field. Not now, not ever. And Paul Gleason may become the pied piper for equity, a much needed coaching voice, a man who has the temerity to be heard.

“Hey,” Gleason said. “I’m 66 years old. I’ve watched this long enough. There comes a point where you just don’t give a (hoot) anymore.”

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro