Bishops live with state A-AA wrestling mix-up
March 7, 1999
The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC)
Author: KEITH NAMM
Bishop England wrestling coach Paul Spence said the toughest part of losing his team's apparent Class A-AA state title to a scoring error was informing his players.
"The people it's been hardest on is the kids. It was awfully hard to look in those kids' faces as they turned in their team medals. It was not an easy thing to do," said Spence, the team's eighth-year head coach.
Spence said he did not find out until about 3:30 p.m. Monday that Loris was the actual winner and his Bishops were second in the Feb. 27 state meet at Furman's Timmons Arena.
That Saturday evening, the mistake created a false notion that 275-pounder Ryan Sherrer could secure the state title for the Bishops by winning his own championship match.
"Going into the match believing we had to have a pin to win, and our heavyweight gets a pin to win - the feeling was indescribable," said Spence, who was wrapped up in the drama along with his team members and 40-50 Bishop faithful who had made the trip to Greenville. "To be perfectly honest, I would rather have had second right from the get-go than to have first and have that taken away."
"Our philosophy was to go up there just to wrestle and whatever happened, happened. Up until Monday, we thought we had won."
Said Roger Hazel, a South Carolina High School League assistant executive director, by phone from Columbia, "It shouldn't have happened but it did happen, and I feel for the Bishop England kids. Obviously, we would have done anything to avoid that."
Hazel said the medals and trophies were recollected and will be redistributed to the BE and Loris athletes.
The error blemished the otherwise smoothly run two-day meet, which marked the first time all three state wrestling classifications simultaneously held their individual state meets at the same site. Only A-AA crowned a team champion on Saturday; AAAA and AAA have dual playoff tournaments to determine theirs.
Spence said he was disappointed that some of his players heard about the mistake and its consequences through sources other than him.
"That's a shame. If they hear it from anyone, they should hear it from their coach," he said.
The Bishops' eventual second-place finish - driven by two weight-class champions and six overall wrestlers who placed first through fourth - was a major improvement over their tie for 10th in the 1998 meet.
Spence said his wrestlers' resiliency was already showing a couple of days after they learned of the reversal. "They told me, `Coach we just have to make sure next year it's not even close.'"