Jacksonville Trinity Christian wins FHSAA appeal reversing forfeitures

It has been a wild 48-hours for the Trinity Christian Conquerors.

First, it was the Conquerors self-reporting an ineligible player on Friday afternoon to the FHSAA, that took their then-record of 5-3 and made it 0-8 as a result of forfeiting all the games played through Week 9. Second, it made the last District 3A-2 contest against Episcopal a must-win to force a three-way tiebreaker shootout on Monday.

The ineligibility of the player was a result of a wrong date on paperwork as previously reported.

However, the slate has now been wiped clean for the Conquerors.

On Saturday night, the Jacksonville-based school announced their attentions to appeal the forfeitures, according to the Florida Times-Union.

[su_quote cite=”Trinity Christian Academy”]After exploring the situation further with the FHSAA we have submitted an appeal to the decision of automatic forfeitures on the basis that the decision to allow an ineligible player was unintentional. Neither the coaches or the administration knew or could have known that the student was ineligible based on the information that we had. Regardless if the outcome is positive or negative for the school, we are committed to following the ruling of the FHSAA. Due to the timing of the playoffs, we anticipate a ruling by tomorrow.[/su_quote]

RELATED: Trinity Christian thrashes Episcopal

The result of the FHSAA hearing on the appeal came shortly after 3:00 p.m. Eastern on Sunday afternoon when Justin Barney of the Florida Times-Union, tweeted this out.

Trinity Christian has won its appeal of ineligible player ruling, per coach Verlon Dorminey. Now district champ. No Monday tiebreaker.

— Justin Barney (@JustinBarneyTV) October 30, 2016

In the end, though it turns out the date that Trinity Christian had compared to what the FHSAA had was different and something that the school had no access to when the player started taking classes through the Florida Virtual School, the Florida Times-Union reported.

“They approved our appeal on the basis that there was no way we could have known this kid was ineligible,” he said. “That’s the approach they took on the appeal. It was done inadvertently with the knowledge we had,” Trinity Christian head coach Verlon Dorminey told the Florida Times-Union on Sunday afternoon. “We didn’t have the date that they had and we had no way of getting that date.”

As a result, Trinity Christian’s record of now 6-3 has been restored and has made them the district champion in District 3A-2. Also as a result the district tiebreaker at Episcopal for Monday night has now been canceled and also gives Episcopal claim to the District 3A-2 runner-up spot with the reversal.

Episcopal (8-1) will have a bye week this coming week before traveling to the winner of the District 3A-1 tiebreaker for the opening round of the playoff on Nov. 11. Trinity Christian (6-3) will make a long road trip on Friday to take on Class 6A Pensacola Pine Forest before hosting the runner-up of the District 3A-1 tiebreaker in the first round of the playoffs on Nov. 11.