CIAC: Enforcement of decisive call in Sheehan-Barlow was wrong
CROMWELL — The CIAC has acknowledged that a mistaken call went against Sheehan in the final minutes of Sunday’s Class SS football semifinals, executive director Glenn Lungarini said Tuesday. The call may have cost the Titans a victory in a game Barlow won 17-16, but resolving a rules dispute had to be done on the field.
“We did communicate with the Sheehan administration, the athletic director. The athletic director did reach out asking for clarification on that rule,” Lungarini said at TPC River Highlands for the CIAC’s annual media luncheon with the teams who’ll compete Saturday for championships.
“So we did review that with our state interpreter, Bill Riccio. Bill reviewed it and came back:
We did acknowledge that the enforcement of the penalty, based on the call, was wrong.”
On fourth-and-11 coming out of a time out with 1:19 to play, the Record-Journal reported, Sheehan, up 16-10, punted while Barlow had 12 men on the field and involved in the play. The call on the field came after the snap and was five yards for illegal substitution. Sheehan punted again, and Barlow drove for a winning touchdown.
The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) rules case book notes that if an official counts 12 men and throws a flag before the snap, that’s illegal substitution, but if the play goes off, teams are responsible for their own substitutions and the call becomes illegal participation, which is a 15yard penalty.
The 15 yards on Sunday would’ve given Sheehan a first down and, with Barlow out of time outs, likely a win.
“We recognize that that was an error in enforcement,” Lungarini said.
“We apologized to Sheehan, to the football players, to the coaches, that the wrong enforcement was put forward.”
That said, the CIAC’s information packet for the football tournament says “disputes arising from the decisions, interpretations and/or misapplications of National Federation or CIAC game rules by officials during the contest must be resolved at the time of the dispute and cannot be contested after the event. All decisions of the game offi
cials are final.”
Lungarini repeated that Tuesday.
“There’s no overturning of the game, “he said, “but we do recognize it was the wrong enforcement.”
Vote or play off
So come Saturday night, we 26 ink-and-bit-stained wretches have to pick somebody to be the No. 1 team in the final GameTimeCT Top 10 Poll...
“Yeah, you might as well pick us,” New Canaan coach Lou Marinelli said with a smile.
His Rams are certainly in the conversation as they try to retain their Class L title. They were No. 2 to Class LL champion Greenwich in last year’s final poll, and he didn’t need reminding.
“I was a little disappointed last year. We had one loss, and the No. 1 team, we had tremendous respect for, Greenwich,” Marinelli said, “but I really didn’t understand that. We
lost one: We were ahead in the fourth quarter and gave it up to St. Joe’s. So I don’t know.”
Only half of the postseason top 10 plays on Saturday: No. 1 Staples against No. 7 West Haven in Class LL, No. 4 New Canaan against Darien in Class L, and No. 5 North Haven against No. 10 Wilton in Class MM.
“I think the games have to get played, then you’ve got to see what kind of logjam you have,” North Haven coach Tony Sagnella said. “I certainly think we have an argument if we get past Wilton. We understand the obstacles, so we’ll see. It’s not as clearcut, especially if West Haven beats Staples. But that’s interesting.”
Sagnella said he and his team were at the Walter Camp Football Foundation breakfast in the spring sitting between New Canaan and Greenwich, and the Cardinals received the Kelly Award as the state’s No. 1 team.
“Adam Pandolfi said
‘What’s that?’ ‘It’s the Kelly Trophy,’ ” Sagnella remembered. “’How do you get that?’ ‘You’ve got to finish No. 1.’ All I remember saying to our guys was, well, if you look at it, our schedule, it’s a road map to the Kelly Trophy if we navigate it.”
No one will finish unbeaten this year; only Ansonia did last year. Greenwich was No. 1 all season until its Thanksgiving loss to Staples, and then West Haven sent the Cardinals home in the semifinals.
There are reasonable arguments to go around.
“Yeah, I’d like to think” Staples made a case, coach Adam Behrends said, “but that’s not really for us to decide. We can step out, take it one game at a time and just handle that part of it and let the rest of the chips fall where they may.”
Though most coaches say it’s not first on their minds, well, it is in their minds.
“We beat six top-10 teams. Top-10, not just in LL, in the whole state,” West Haven coach Rich Boshea said. “We’ve done
our best, and that’s all we can do. We lost twice, so we don’t have any rock-solid demand on it, but we’ll see what happens.
“Greenwich was No. 1 last year with two losses. We beat Greenwich. I guess, if we find a way to win (vs. Staples) — these guys are good, man — we’ll have to let the intelligentsia figure that one out.”
Marinelli wouldn’t mind a kind of super-playoff to decide it on the field and leave only one team standing, though he knows it’ll never happen.
So regardless of the poll, six schools are going to hang a banner forever on Saturday.
“The fact that we’re in the conversation is great,” Marinelli said. “Ten years from now, who’s going to know who’s No. 1?”
Running a reverse
If you have last year’s CIAC finals schedule but not this year’s, stick with what you have, but swap the sites.
Classes MM, M and LL are at Central Connecticut’s Arute Field. Classes
S, L and SS are at Rentschler Field. They were at the other site in those same orders in 2022.
“This is the first year I don’t remember reporters ever saying ‘aw, they shoulda put this game here, shoulda put this game there,” CIAC associate executive director Gregg Simon said.
There’s always some gripe, right?
“No, nobody said a word,” he said. “I guess it’s a pretty good lineup. If you want to see the LL, the L and the MM, which I think a lot of people are going to want to see, you could see all three of them if you want.”
Google Maps says a trip between the stadiums on Saturday afternoon takes typically 18-26 minutes, so particularly the MM-to-L jaunt might be a little tight but doable.
Flipping the sites, Simon said, was a plan in place from the start.
“You know, Bloomfield played at Central last year,” he said; “maybe they would like to play at Rentschler.”