The MIAA tournament is eliminated after the association lost in court

More than a dozen schools in western Massachusetts have failed to comply with an MIAA rule requiring them to submit complete schedules, including potential regional tournament games, by Sept. 13. Their league, the Pioneer Valley Interscholastic Athletic Conference, holds its own tournaments after the regular season and before the state tournament. The penalized schools failed to indicate the dates of their expected regional postseason tournament games as “TBA” or “to be announced” on their schedules.

Of all the schools that failed to comply, only Minnechaug, along with individual Monson High School families, took the MIAA to court, claiming the organization unfairly penalized them by recording their regional tournament games as losses.

Monson does not compete in field hockey or girls volleyball, but its boys' and girls' soccer teams were affected by the MIAA's penalty. The soccer tournament schedules are scheduled to be released on Friday, with the tournaments scheduled to begin on Sunday.

Hampden Superior Court Judge Tracy Duncan said in a handwritten order Wednesday after hearing the MIAA's objections during Tuesday's emergency hearing: “The TRO remains in effect.”

It ordered the MIAA to drop the forfeiture penalties and prohibited the MIAA from recording the results of all games played by the Minnechaug and Monson teams “in any manner other than the actual results achieved.”

The judge also stated that the MIAA “shall administer and issue the rankings and determine eligibility for an MIAA state tournament based on correct and accurate game results, without prejudice to any penalty by the MIAA for nonconforming schedule submissions.”

As a result, the Minnechaug field hockey team finished with a record of 7-8-3 and is seeded 19th in the 35-team state tournament. Minnechaug of Wilbraham will open the state tournament against 14th-ranked Westborough (6-9-2).

The Minnechaug girls volleyball team posted a final record of 13-7 and is seeded 26th in the 40-team tournament. Its first opponent will be 39th-ranked Putnam Vocational Technical Academy (16-3) of Springfield.

The other western Massachusetts schools that were penalized for failing to meet the school plan submission deadline and chose not to challenge the sanctions in court accepted the forfeiture.

Minnechaug and the Monson families argued before the judge that the MIAA penalty was “arbitrary and capricious,” the standard the state Supreme Court has set for lower courts deciding MIAA cases. For example, they said the MIAA made exceptions for football teams that didn't meet the filing deadline, but rebuffed attempts by Minnechaug and Monson to set the record straight.

The MIAA argued that the Pioneer Valley Conference had agreed that its playoff games involving schools that did not properly submit their schedules would be forfeited.

“The schools were well aware of the impact of participating in the unreported PVIAC tournament games, but chose to participate anyway,” the MIAA said.

The organization is expected to address the issue to avoid a similar situation in future seasons.

Bob Hohler can be reached at [email protected].