"Muggle Quidditch" ???

Bronx High School of Science lost 50 to 30 to Lenox High School of Lenox, Mass., as Central Park played host to an exhibition of Quidditch, the soccer-like game invented by "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling.

In the books, Quidditch is played by wizards and witches on flying broomsticks. The real-life version with Muggles — non-magical folk — started in 2005 at Middlebury College in Vermont and is now played at more than 150 colleges and 100 high schools.

In Muggle Quidditch, chasers try to throw the quaffle — a volleyball — through a hoop. For defense, beaters hit opposing players with a bludger — a dodgeball. The team's seeker runs after the snitch, a fast runner holding a tennis ball in a sock, which the seeker has to grab like the flag in flag football. In the fictional game, the snitch is a winged ball.

The players race around after quaffles and snitches while holding their brooms between their legs.

"This version of the game is the best it could possibly work in real life, short of flying brooms," said Alex Benepe, 23, commissioner of the International Quidditch Assn.

Benepe said Sunday's exhibition was intended to announce the incorporation of the Quidditch association as a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Quidditch and literacy education.