Opinion by Scrimmage Play
The Fluvanna County boys and Western Albemarle girls are out of the Jefferson District tournament after routing their quarterfinal opponents. It’s chaos in the JD.
The mob has the torches lit and is ready to find the party responsible and deliver its justice. The only problem? Nobody can decide with any consensus on which party to blame.
There’s no question that the VHSL comes out as the villain, whether that’s the case or not, simply because they are the governing body who doled out the appeal denial. However, you have to consider that the letter of the law here was pretty clearly violated, no matter what the definition of a tournament is. It’s no fun when the letter of the law is violated in the name of doing something nice (giving a year-long JV player playing time in a playoff game), or that the violations had zero effect on the outcome. All the same, the rule was broken. Whether or not it’s a good rule or not is for debate later. Call the VHSL evil, call them sticklers, call them whatever you want. The rules are in place and the schools all agree to abide by them — it’s certainly not the appeals committee’s job to rewrite bylaws. The hope is this leads to either future reform or scheduling that won’t set teams up for trouble.
That’s where the athletic directors come in. An email obtained by FlucoBlog’s Bryan Rothamel indicates that Monticello athletic director Fitzgerald Barnes at least first suggested the move that put teams in position to commit the violation. But the other schools wouldn’t have moved without the approval from their athletic directors.
Monticello is catching heavy comment board and Facebook wall fire since both their boys and girls teams benefit the most matchup wise against the eighth seeds in both cases, but prior to the violations, both teams appeared to be firmly ensconced in the Region II playoffs. The bottom line is that the athletic directors offered a chance for the top JV players to be on the bench for varsity games, to be a part of something special and any young player will tell you how exhilarating it is to be called up, much less play. We’re not sure anyone thought things would go this route, and an email from Western athletic director Steve Heon Wednesday morning explained that the appeals committee was made aware of the change in schedule orchestrated by the athletic directors.
Finally, the coaches. If there’s one party you shouldn’t blame, it’s the coaches. In this case it’s Munro Rateau for Fluvanna County and Kris Wright for Western Albemarle. It was Wright that wound up getting this whole ball of wax going, holding a team meeting on Saturday when he realized that his team played a JV player that broke the rules. Wright blew the whistle on his own team and Rateau went and did the same as soon as it was brought to his attention. That’s an important lesson for both teams’ players that skirting the rules isn’t an option — maybe neither roster needed it or wanted it, but both groups have handled this with a lot of class.
Both coaches should be commended for not only holding themselves accountable, but also showing sportsmanship by even playing the JV players that sent this mess into action. That’s a great opportunity for a junior varsity kid to be able to get some court time in a playoff game. Granted, now neither can add Jefferson District tourney titles to their regular season crowns, but sometimes life lessons like accountability and honesty are more important than a championship. This whole situation is over a very technical, sport specific rule that could only come into play were the JV championship moved. Who would’ve really thought to go read the rule book without the benefit of today’s hindsight?
In the end the Fluvanna boys and Western girls suffer. But at the same time, their playoff fates remain the same. Both schools will host Region II quarterfinal games. In fact, maybe both will benefit from getting the short end of the stick. Overcoming frustration, chips on shoulders, disrespect and so forth — that’s the stuff sports movies are made of.
It is unfair that these players don’t get the chance at a clean sweep of the district, nor would it be fair to the William Monroe boys should they get knocked out of Region II play because of the eighth seeded Western Albemarle boys picking up two wins, which, reportedly, could be a possibility. Then again, figuring out the region standings is still tough because so much is riding on the other districts’ tournaments.
Still, this storm is not the result of any one party. It’s a perfect storm of mistakes, and all those involved are human. It happens. Now if both teams’ seasons were over, it’d be much worse. But even then, hopefully, integrity and accountability from both coaches would rule the day like it has this week.
Boys Top Five
1. Blue Ridge (21-0) — It’s been a long time since the Miller/Blue Ridge game wasn’t close. This team is on an absolute roll. They don’t even look happy winning. That’s all the more intimidating.
2. Fluvanna County (20-2) — The forfeit doesn’t change things much for Fluvanna. They still host a Region II game, they’re still the team to beat in the publics. This could wind up working out quite well. Chips on shoulders rarely hurt.
3. Charlottesville (15-5) — With Fluvanna out of the picture, the Black Knights have to be both mad and sad — they wanted another shot at the Flucos, but they’ll make due with an easier path to the JD tourney title. But they can’t rest on their laurels just yet. They can’t simply chalk up wins against Orange on Thursday and Monticello/Western on Friday without playing well.
4. Buckingham (13-4) — Big win over Amelia last week. The victory shows the Knights can win this James River tournament again. Confidence is key for this group heading forward as they look for yet another Region B run.
5. Albemarle (13-9) — It’s all over for Albemarle. They simply couldn’t get past Mountain View this year, but this was a good team and yet again managed to stay competitive in a crazy tough district despite losing some of its best players from last year’s squad.
Lurking — Miller (13-10)
Girls Top Five
1. St. Anne’s-Belfield (18-1) — A dominant 30-point win over Collegiate in the LIS tournament is how the Saints begin their march towards a state title. We’re waiting for a team to give them a close game but haven’t seen it in a good while.
2. Miller (17-4) — That this team is just now getting to full strength does not bode well for the Mavericks’ playoff opponents. Ashley Bowles’ absence has made this a team cut out of stone.
3. Western Albemarle (19-4) — Just like we said above for the Fluvanna boys, hats off to Western for self reporting. Getting bounced by that from the tournament could make this a determined team come Region II time next week.
4. William Monroe (19-3) — All of the sudden, today’s semi-final match has the feel of the JD championship game. Monroe would love to get past Charlottesville for a crack at Monticello/Goochland and its first ever JD tourney title.
5. Charlottesville (13-4) — Only one other school (Fluvanna County last year) has ever won the JD tournament outside of the Black Knights. They too would love to play Monticello or Goochland. But beating Monroe could possibly be even sweeter for this bunch.
