You could hear the collective sighs of frustration all the way from Coudersport on Thursday afternoon.
It wasn’t that the Lady Falcons softball team had made it to the District 9 Class A playoffs slotted as the fourth seed.
And it wasn’t that they would get to host their first-round game as a reward for an impressive 13-4 mark under first-year coach Trevor Saulter.
No, it was the opponent heading to Potter County.
After losing to DuBois Central Catholic, 11-0, earlier this season, Coudersport will face the Lady Cardinals in a rematch on Tuesday at 4 o’clock.
The problem — more so the bewilderment — is exactly how DCC ended up as the fifth seed in the tournament.
You see, the Cardinals haven’t actually lost a game this season. Instead, they were forced to forfeit nine games for using an ineligible player. That punishment was handed down by the District 9 Committee less than two years after that same administrative body placed the school on probation for a different infraction.
At the time the current ruling was rendered, DCC was 14-0 on the season. It has won 11 games by at least 13 runs this year.
It’s been reported by D9sports.com that DCC has had three athletic directors and two principals over the last two years, but that’s no excuse for continually making errors on simple paperwork with which other schools in the District haven’t had issues.
And while the administrators, and not the students, warrant the blame at DuBois CC, it’s the D-9 committee which deserves a major dose of responsibility at the next level.
Instead of re-seeding the Class A softball playoffs based on actual wins and losses, it decided to seed the Lady Cardinals including their nine forfeits.
Instead of being the top seed in the playoffs, they’re slotted in the middle of the pack. In short, it punishes the Lady Falcons much more than it does DuBois CC.
Saulter took the diplomatic high road.
“Lots of things to look at with this,” he admitted. “But there’s nothing we can do about it and can only control what we can.
“Biggest thing we can do is go out there and hit the ball better than the first time we played them.”
He said he’s been told that District 9 followed PIAA “rules” on the issue and that’s why it decided not to re-seed DCC based on actual wins and losses.
A District 9 committee member confirmed to the Era that, indeed, protocol in the seeding was being followed after much discussion at a meeting in early May.
Still, one must wonder if this was a time when “protocol” could have been broken for a more fair and open-minded approach in the win-or-go-home playoffs.
After all, the Coudersport players and coaches, who followed the rules all season, are now major underdogs as the higher seed in the tournament’s first round.
Saulter did make mention of the issue currently plaguing high school sports in Pennsylvania: non-boundary (Catholic and private) schools versus boundary (public) schools.
“Every one of their players is an athlete,” he said of DuBois CC. “They have 20-plus players, six coaches and who knows where they’re pulling girls from. It’s an issue in a lot of sports in the state right now … something they have to look at.”
(Anthony Sambrotto, the Era sports editor, can be reached at erasambrotto@gmail.com).
