Updated 1p.m.: Trion State Playoff Game Cancelled; What Next?

Update:

The Trion Bulldogs baseball team is headed home after no decision has been reached with the GHSA about the Class A problems with an appeal being heard in Atlanta. The earliest that the team could play now would be Monday. The program is out a minmum of $2,500 so far.

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The Trion Bulldogs’ scheduled state playoff game at Irwin County on Thursday was canceled Wednesday by the Georgia High School Association (GHSA).

Trion School Superintendent Dr. Phil Williams said today that they hoped to hear something around lunch about what would be happening.

“They are fighting it out in Atlanta,” Dr. Williams said. “That will determine when we will play and against who we will play.”

The problem began in a regular season game between Irwin County and Charlton County in which Charlton County won. The Charlton pitcher went over the pitch limit by five pitches.

Charlton County self-reported the incident to the GHSA They were fined but they also were made to forfeit the game. The forfeit made Charlton County not region champions anymore and they fell to third or fourth causing the problems in who would play whom.

A superior court judge got involved and filed an injunction with the GHSA to stop the playoffs until the matter could be resolved.

“There is a better than 50-percent chance that we will play tomorrow (Friday),” the superintendent said. “This whole thing is becoming political.”

The Bulldogs had gone down Wednesday on a chartered bus and stayed in a hotel.

“If we play Friday we will just stay another night (Thursday) because it so far to drive,” he added.

The team was about an hour away from the hotel on Wednesday when they got an email about the problem. They could not get their hotel money back and the bus was chartered so they decided to just go ahead and check into the hotel.

Williams said he told Head Baseball and Athletic Director Coach Jason Lanham to just stay in case they play on Friday.

“I told Jason that if you come back now – we have already lost the hotel money and the charter – we would have to drive all the way back.”

The superintendent told Lanham to just make it fun for the kids and take them to a movie. They also held a workout Thursday morning at a nearby college field.

“I hope that we play Friday,” Supt. Williams said. “If they say Monday, we will have to come all the way back to Trion and go all the way back on Sunday.”
Trion will be out about $3,500 because of all the changes.

“It’s not right, to me, once you set the brackets and the appeals have been heard then you have a judge come in and put a stop to everything,” Williams said. “We have already played the first round and won, and they are talking about if it is overturned, none of that will count. They will have to redo the entire Power Rankings system and we would have to play somebody else. Surely, the judge in Atlanta will say that since you have already started this tournament, we are going to keep going with it and let’s play ball.”