Rough seas in the Ocean League

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There has been some rough water in the Ocean League the past couple of days, and the wake created by an altercation involving Inglewood and Morningside could still wash over the Southern Section Western Division playoffs.

Even as league entries for the playoffs were given to the Southern Section office Saturday morning, the game Friday between the Sentinels and the Monarchs that was suspended by referees because of the altercation was still being reviewed by Jerry Chabola, the president of the South Bay Athletic Assn.

Inglewood, which was leading Morningside, 16-6, at the time the game was stopped, lodged an appeal with the league on Saturday afternoon regarding a decision by Chabola to hit both teams with a loss for the altercation. A loss by Inglewood would eliminate any chance the Sentinels have of making the playoffs.

‘This kind of situation doesn’t happen very often, where it’s the end of the season and there are all these playoff implications,’ said Chabola, who is also the athletic director at Culver City. ‘There’s not much I can say right now, except that I’m continuing to gather and go over new information about what happened as we get it.’

It is unclear what would, or even could, happen, because Chabola has yet speak to Southern Section officials about the appeal.

As a result of the Sentinels’ appeal, however, Chabola said there could be a meeting of Ocean League officials in the coming days to review, and possibly to vote on, whether Inglewood could be awarded a victory on the basis of its lead at the time the game was suspended.

Such a move would leave Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and Inglewood in a tie for second place with 3-2 league records behind champion Culver City. The Ocean League, though, receives only three playoff spots.

‘I’ve never been through something like this, so I really don’t know what’s going to happen,’ said Carter Paysinger, the Ocean League coordinator with the Southern Section office and also Beverly Hills’ coach and athletic director. ‘I couldn’t tell you what’s going to happen. I really don’t know.’

The league was required to turn in regular-season standings that determine playoff representatives to the Southern Section office by 9 a.m. Saturday, and Paysinger met that deadline by faxing in standings that listed Culver City, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica as the top three teams.

‘I’m more than disappointed because I know how much time and effort our kids put into this,’ Inglewood Coach Charles Mincy said. ‘I know how much we demand from them all season, and this makes it as if their efforts meant nothing.’

The Inglewood-Morningside game, played at Coleman Stadium in Inglewood, was stopped by referees with about eight minutes to play in the third quarter.

If Inglewood had secured a victory over Morningside, it would have created a three-way tie for second, resulting in a series of coin flips between the deadlocked teams to determine the second and third representatives into the playoffs.

Pressed by the playoff-seedings deadline, Chabola turned to the league constitution, which didn’t directly address a game suspended because of a fight. The bylaws did say ‘if two teams must forfeit to each other, the game shall not be replayed and each team shall take a loss.’ Chabola’s decision to tack losses onto the records of Inglewood and Morningside left Culver City (10-0, 5-0), Santa Monica (6-4, 3-2) and Beverly Hills (4-5-1, 3-2) as the league’s playoff representatives.

‘This is a league decision,’ said Rob Wigod, Southern Section assistant commissioner in charge of football. ‘It’s up to them what they do in this case.’

Mincy took issue with the decision not only because his team led Morningside at the time of the suspension, but because he believed that Paysinger, as both the league coordinator and Beverly Hills coach, had a conflict of interest in the situation.

‘It’s just suspicious,’ Mincy said. ‘It’s like it was a closed-door decision.’

Paysinger denied any intent to leave Mincy or Inglewood out of the loop.

‘We wouldn’t want a playoff spot that we hadn’t earned,’ he said. ‘I had zero input. I took all my direction from Jerry Chabola, and I’ll continue to do that.’

Stay tuned, everyone.

-- Lauren Peterson

-- Image from www.bbc.co.uk