Southlake Carroll 7 on 7 Controversy..By Matt Diggs

[KFDM COOP]

By Matt Diggs

You will read that Southlake Carroll actually won

their own tournament! How can this be? The rules

hold that teams are not allowed to advance out of

their own pool!

The story goes back a little further than this -

rumblings at the Weatherford tournament and the Wylie

tournament clued Little Matt and myself to the fact

that Southlake was going to hold a controversial

tournament. Until we had pools, we decided to keep

hushed up about it - and talk to the coaches directly

and find out what was going on. Although we do not

deem ourselves horribly ethical journalists with

degrees in sports journalism 101, we do know the

bounds of common sense, and did not want to go public

with this information, especially without any type of

confirmation from coaches.

Friday night came, eight phone calls were left

unreturned to the Carroll coaching staff to get pool

information. Another prominent website was also

unable to find out Southlake pool information. This

was very curious, as usually pools are not hard

information to obtain. Something fishy was going on

in Southlake, but we decided to sit on the

information.

It turns out that Southlake was being hushed about the

situation as they were about to run a SQT that ran

perpendicular to the rules set out by the 7 on 7

officials. I would only imagine if Little Matt and I

knew from referees that Southlake was considering

running some weird tournament, that some of the

directors knew about it as well. Although this is

unconfirmed, I can only imagine that the SQT directors

would not have been happy about this - and were not

happy after the way the tournament unfolded.

Southlake decided on its own volition to have eight

teams out of 16 advance to quarterfinal play,

regardless of the actual rules. I suppose, as some

message board Carroll experts put it, to give the

Dragons continued reps against good competition for

their fall dominance - because 7 on 7 means nothing.

I would like to take this moment to congratulate

Colleyville Heritage coaches for having the integrity

not to continue on into the qualifying rounds,

allowing Azle a chance to advance. It wouldn't matter

as Azle lost to Southlake Carroll in the first round

of this unorthodox style, so basically Carroll, a team

that qualified, knocked out Azle, a team that was

given the chance to qualify by a gracious act of

Heritage, from having the chance to qualify. Stay

with me here if this might be confusing. A team that

has already advanced to the state tournament is now

preventing another team from qualifying in the big

dance.

So in the semifinals, we have Carroll, Grapevine,

Stephenville and Lamar - 3 teams that have not

qualified, no representative from pool D, and two

representatives from pool A - one of which that has

qualified. It makes you wonder why to even have pool

play at this point. Must have been for the precious

Dragons to have extra reps and practice for the fall

season. Lamar and Carroll win, so Carroll knocks off

a SECOND team that won its pool and has not qualified

for its own personal glorification I suppose, and

Arlington Lamar wins the first berth. I suppose to at

least follow the rule that says two teams must

qualify, a third place game was created with Grapevine

and Stephenville. Stephenville lost to a

non-qualifier in Lamar, and Grapevine lost to a state

qualifier in Carroll.

In the finals, Southlake Carroll wins their own

tournament, defeating Arlington Lamar on what Little

Matt politely noted as a "controversial play" - what

Little Matt didn't want to say, and that I received an

email or two about, is that the Dragons scored on the

last play of the game, as the horn whistled, but about

2-3 seconds after the 20 minutes had expired for the

game. Several "unofficial" time keepers had noted

that the time had expired, but the Dragons wanted to

get one more play off, the Dragons were the time

keepers, and well, the Dragons win the tournament.

Regardless of a 40:03 clock, we can only be glad that

this was a meaningless championship game - I can only

imagine what would have happened if Carroll decided to

make up more rules and require teams to beat them for

the right to make the tournament on 3 instead of 2

occasions.

So Grapevine and Stephenville play the third place

game, and Grapevine loses to Stephenville, apparently

tired from playing SIX games to qualify instead of the

requisite 4 games - and having their 5th game (which

is normally a meaningless championship game) be

against Southlake Carroll to qualify!

Since the 7 on 7 board of directors strongly believes

in their rules, judging by the actions taken in Alvin

to disqualify a team that had played four full games

and won four full games before being informed that

their jersies violated code, and assuming since I knew

that Southlake Carroll was having an illegal format -

that certainly some of the other coaches knew as well

that they were violating policy, I call for a

disqualification of Carroll from the tournament and a

revocation of their SQT for the next year. Anything

less than this will be a sign that the 7 on 7 board of

directors won't follow by their own rules. Carroll

forced its arch rival Grapevine to play SIX games for

the opportunity to qualify - whereas every other

tournament in the state requires only four. Carroll

created a situation that was advantageous to them -

they got to play in six different games without any

pressure to qualify - meanwhile teams that don't start

the season on third base are fighting and clawing just

to get into the tournament. I would propose that

Grapevine receive Southlake's disqualified spot, since

it was Southlake's illegal pool format that adversely

impacted the Mustangs, forcing them beyond their

comfort zone to have an opportunity to even qualify.

I am personally embarrassed as someone that covers 7

on 7 fairly religiously that Carroll would so openly

and egregiously disregard the rules of the 7 on 7

tournament. The Dragons have been as much of 7 on 7

as any team, winning the first ever 7 on 7 tournament

in 1998. Their mere presence in College Station

brings the level up. Wylie's victory over them last

year had a celebration attached to it like a state

championship (Gobbla2001 Note: Wow, never celebrated like that after practice ha).

For the 7 on 7 directors at Southlake

to cheapen the tournament for whatever gain they feel

they may have achieved was disrespectful and lacked

integrity. I would call on Southlake Carroll to

voluntarily take themselves out of the 7 on 7 state

tournament, but if they decide not to do this, I hope

the state board takes the appropriate action - for

Grapevine, for Sugar Land Dulles, which lost the

chance to play in College Station, and for the 7 on 7

community in general, that demands that the rules be

followed.

[KFDM COOP]

Thanks Matt for letting us post this.

[gringo]

Well said, great article.

[NeDeRlAnD b-DoG fAn]

its sad that SLC would go through all this trouble to win a 7 on 7 tournament

[Guest Living 4 Friday Nights]

I had heard through the grapevine that one of SLC's coaches is one of the main guys over the 7 on 7.