BUCKHANNON – What in the blue hell is going on with this state and its high school scholastic sports?

By the time it came around for me to write this column on Thursday, there isn’t much left to say that hasn’t been covered, including a great article covering it by My Buckhannon owner Brian Bergstrom.

A small capsule of the insanity going on.

SPRING MILLS

• Spring Mills was 8-1 two weeks ago but self-reported to the WVSSAC using an ineligible player (is there such a thing anymore in 2024?) and had to forfeit four games knocking them down from second to 10^th in the ratings which shook up the playoff pairings in Class AAAA. A potential rematch with No. 1 Martinsburg could happen now in the semis instead of the state championship game. But wait there is more. The ineligible player from Spring Mills was 18-years-old Treshawn Garmon, who was arrested in October and extradited back to Georgia on charges of sexual assault of a child. But wait, there is more. On Thursday afternoon, a Berkley County judge restored Spring Mills’ four wins so now they are back to 9-1. I guess the WVSSAC football playoffs, which are currently paused, will get another makeover for Quad A. You just can’t make this stuff up.

CLASS A VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT

• If your team made the state tournament in Class A, hold on because you didn’t get to play in the tournament this week while the other three classes did. Why?  It revolves around Tyler Consolidated, who was Class AA going into this year’s reclassifications, then a judge (them again) ruled they could be classified as Class A for volleyball. The problem is, and this is the great part, the ruling came as teams were already playing in sectional and regional tournaments. So that of course led to numerous injunctions and orders from different courts across the state pausing the tournament in Class A. You just can’t make this stuff up.

FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS

• Ah yes, the football playoffs. Hope you weren’t planning on going to any playoff games Friday night as they have been put on pause, and I know this will shock you, after a court-ordered injunction. Well, except for the newly proposed play-in games. What? Play-in games? Yes, the two teams that got bounced from the playoffs in Class AAA after the WVSSAC reworked the rankings following an injunction (There is that word again) are still allowed to play. So now I guess Point Pleasant and Hampshire, who made the playoff field in the original pairings, are going to play the two new teams in, St. Albans and Capital, in play-in games? But this is only for Class AAA teams, not the two teams that got bumped from Class AA. Got it? I hope so because I sure don’t. You just can’t make this stuff up. So, the playoffs aren’t happening this week. For all those teams that looked to this point of the season, sorry to tell you but you have to wait a week, and maybe longer until the litigation ends, and at this point, who knows when this will be.

THE SSAC FOOTBALL RATINGS ARE CRAP

• Oh, and one last thing. Fix the SSAC ratings system. While I applaud them for adding bonus points for playing a tougher schedule, but how about we weigh those bonus points a little differently than what we are doing now? If you haven’t noticed, Bridgeport finished the year a perfect 10-0 and are ranked third in Class AAA, behind a 9-1 Fairmont Seniorteam, ranked second, that they beat on the road two weeks ago by a 56-28 score. On what planet does that even make sense? As I mentioned a few weeks ago, B-U was 0-9 and ahead of teams with two wins in the rankings. There are 3-7 teams (Capital) ahead of 7-3 teams (Shady Spring) in the current playoffs. Winning has to mean something right? Fix this already because you just can’t make this stuff up.