Seminole County must forfeit game after fight

By Todd Holcomb

For the AJC

Seminole County High School must forfeit its game Friday night against Mitchell County because a fight in last week’s game led to the suspension of all but nine of its players, GHSA executive director Ralph Swearngin said Monday.

Seminole County lost to Daleville (Ala.) 28-13 last Friday. After a touchdown in the third quarter, a fight broke out and players from both teams’ benches rushed the field, which results in automatic ejections and one-game suspensions.

“There was a try for a point-after and two kids got into a hassle and a brother of one of the kids came off the sideline to defend his brother and everything broke loose,’’ Swearngin said. “They [officials and coaches] did a good job of containing it and keep it from being a really ugly incident.’’

Nine Seminole players who were on the field legally during the final play were not penalized because they didn’t participate in fighting. Two players on the field and two from the Seminole bench were ejected for fighting, but the rest of the suspensions were for leaving the bench.

Daleville also is expected to received suspensions and might be forced to forfeit its next game, but Swearngin was unaware if a ruling in Alabama had been made.

Swearngin said that it was possible that the Alabama High School Association could force Daleville to forfeit its game against Seminole due to the incident, but he added that the GHSA then would consider the game a double forfeit.

This is believed to be the first time that a Georgia team has forfeited a game after suspensions left it without enough players to field a team.

Seminole County, the southwestern most Georgia school, is 3-2 overall and 2-0 in Region 1-A. The team has made the state playoffs each of the past five seasons.