By Allison Goldsmith
I&M Sports Editor
The boys varsity soccer team has been stripped of its Lighthouse Conference title and playoff eligibility due to an academically ineligible player who participated in the first seven games of the season.
In late September, the guidance office alerted athletic director Nancy Larrabee that a member of the boys soccer team was not eligible to participate in interscholastic activities due to academic ineligibility. The student, whose name has been withheld by Larrabee citing student confidentiality, legally changed his name prior to the season and as a result, during the required eligibility check, did not come to the attention of the administration, she said.
“It came down to being registered in the school under a different last name and being known to the athletic director and the soccer coach as a different last name,” Larrabee said. “He had a legal name change and the athletic department and the soccer coach were not aware of it.”
In a team meeting on Thursday afternoon head coach Rich Brannigan told the team that under Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association rules, the Whalers must forfeit the two wins and three ties earned during that period.
“The team was definitely upset and kind of in shock. It was really a quiet meeting,” Brannigan said.
Had the wins and ties not been stripped, Nantucket would have entered the playoffs with a respectable 9-5-4 record. Instead, the Whalers finished the regular season 7-10-1, 4-2 in the Lighthouse Conference. It was the first time the boys soccer team has not made the playoffs since 2003. The team wrapped up its season Friday with a 3-1 victory over Sturgis.
“This is why the kids play and to have that rug pulled out from under you is definitely hard for them to handle,” Brannigan said. “This is really a season like no other. We have never had to deal with issues like we have dealt with this year. These are all things that could have easily toppled any team. Going through what they have gone through at this point in the season probably prepared them for something like this. They have already seen what rock bottom is in terms of emotions and they know what the big picture is.”
During the season the Whalers overcame losing four key starters to injuries – Philipe Bazilio, Bryan Tarcitano, Jose Ramirez and Devon Kohler – and dealt with the sudden death of girls soccer star Kate MacLellan. They were gearing up for run through the playoffs when the news hit.
Student eligibility for the fall season is determined by cumulative grades from the previous school year. Students with more than one failing grade are not allowed to play sports during the next grade period.
According to the MIAA handbook, “If a school uses an ineligible student in any interscholastic contest, such contest shall be forfeited to the opposing school . . . The principal of a school which plays a student who is later found to be ineligible, whether because of the student’s own misstatement or lack of care on the part of the school authorities, shall notify in writing the principal(s) of the opposing school(s) and the Executive Director of the MIAA, forfeiting every competition in which the ineligible student competed. ”
“The case was pretty straight-forward,” MIAA spokesperson Paul Wetzel said. “The student was ineligible to play and our basic rule is any time a team uses an ineligible player, when that is discovered, they have to forfeit any games that that kid played in.”
“As a member of the MIAA, we are expected to police ourselves in these matters,” said Larrabee, who contacted the governing body for consultation regarding the matter. “We submitted paper work that we acknowledged the ineligible player and that we were looking for no sanctions to be taken against the whole team and that was denied (by the MIAA).”
“We got word there might be a problem at the end of September. From that point on we – the school and myself – kept pursuing scenarios, trying to understand bylaws and reading the fine print. We had a really strong feeling that this would be an appealable thing and appealed successfully,” Brannigan said.
In late August, when the student, a returning player on the varsity team, arrived on the field for practice, Brannigan listed his name on the roster as he had in the past. The roster was submitted to Larrabee to check for eligibility. No one noticed the name-change error until Sept. 27. At this time the player was immediately removed from the team.
“The kid didn’t change his name to elude any type of disciplinary action,” Brannigan said.
After their first attempt to avoid sanctions was denied at the executive director level of the MIAA, Larrabee and principal George Kelly sought the counsel of school attorney Michael Long on Oct. 9. On Oct. 11 they appealed to the MIAA Student Eligibility Review Board. Kelly continued conversations without success with the MIAA. The school needed to come to a resolution last week because tournament eligibility information was due to the MIAA by Friday afternoon.
“I feel that I have spent a month, I have exhausted the appeals process. I don’t like the outcome, but there is nothing more I can do as the athletic director or that George Kelly can do as the principal,” Larrabee said.
“I am happy for how the school fought in this instance. They pushed the appeal as far through the MIAA appeals process as we can push it. I am unhappy with the result of the appeal, but I am happy the school was fighting for the issue. We all agreed it was a legitimate fight,” Brannigan said.
Larrabee contacted the five schools affected by the Whalers ineligibility and disclosed the information, awarding those teams a win and the Whalers an additional loss. She noted that most of the schools expressed sympathy for the team’s situation.
In the first seven games of the season, the Whalers assembled a record of 2-2-3 overall with victories over league foes Cape Cod Academy and Provincetown and ties against Cohasset, Norwood and Coyle Cassidy. All efforts were transferred into the loss column with the decision handed down by the MIAA. Cape Cod Academy was deemed the default winner of the Lighthouse Conference.
“It is a very unfortunate event. I have discussed it at the administrative level, team level and with School Committee members to find a better way of kids signing up and being cleared from the sense of permission slips, physical examination forms, grade eligibility and transfer eligibility,” Larrabee said. “We have gone back to check what we are doing and what we need to do differently.”
Brannigan said approved of the timing of the announcement.
“I am really grateful that it happened before our last game because it gave the kids a chance. I was really worried of them walking away on a bad note and a bad note would have been finding out after your last game is played, when you are starting to prepare for playoffs. At least they had the chance to go out again and do something about it,” he said.
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