Football: JSerra won’t have to forfeit win over Santa Margarita

Southern Section Commissioner Rob Wigod announced on Tuesday that JSerra will not have to forfeit a Trinity League football victory over Santa Margarita after the Eagles lodged a complaint that a JSerra player who had been ejected from a JV game the night before had suited up for the varsity game in violation of Southern Section rules.

In an email, Wigod said JSerra officials had contacted the Southern Section office seeking clarification whether the player had been ejected the night before. He said, “I believe they would not have contacted our office at all if it had been clearly communicated to them that their player was ejected from the JV contest.”

Wigod said the office was unable to provide a definitive answer because there was no misconduct form entered in the data base. He said JSerra was instructed to contact the official and never made contact. He said the official did not properly submit the misconduct form. He said JSerra was advised not to play the player by the Orange County area liason of officials if they were unsure of his status, and the player was held out.

“We are responsible and accountable for the misunderstanding that JSerra had when they contacted our office last Friday,” Wigod said in his email.

“I believe that JSerra High School contacted our office in good faith last Friday to specifically try and avoid any potential problems by having this player present at the varsity contest on Friday night.

“I believe that our member schools have to be able to trust the fact that when they seek help from our office, they will get that help. I never want to be in a situation where our member schools look to us for guidance and still suffer consequences after making an honest effort to not violate our rules and avoid those consequnces.”

JSerra is 6-0 on the season and 1-0 in the Trinity League going into Friday’s game against No. 1-ranked St. John Bosco at Orange Coast College.

Twitter:@LATSondheimer