The Class A public-school baseball playoffs, scheduled to resume Thursday with the second round, was postponed indefinitely Wednesday by the Georgia High School Association because of an injunction granted by the Charlton County Superior Court in Folkston.
Judge Andrew C. Spivey ruled that the GHSA did not follow procedure last week when forcing Charlton County’s baseball team to forfeit a March 10 game against Lanier County in which Charlton County admittedly violated the GHSA’s pitch-count rules by allowing a pitcher to throw more than 110 pitches over two days.
Citing email evidence, Charlton County argued that the GHSA originally issued only a warning for the violation but changed course last week, over a month later, and declared the game a forfeit without granting Charlton County an opportunity to argue its case.
The forfeiture cost Charlton County the region title and a higher seed in the state playoffs. As currently assigned as the No. 5 seed in the 24-team bracket, Charlton County faces the possibility of six-hour or longer road trips to Bowdon and to Chickamauga in northwest Georgia in the quarterfinals and semifinals.
With the GHSA’s decision, the region title and the No. 2 seed – which provides the advantage of home games until the neutral-site championship series – went to Irwin County, which set the controversy in motion by appealing to the GHSA last week to level the forfeit.
The judge concluded, ‘’If this Court does not grant an interlocutory injunction, Charlton County [High School] would suffer an irreparable injury by facing the possibility of multiple road series during the playoffs at great financial expense.’’
The GHSA's bylaws call for a forfeit, a fine and a two-game sit-out penalty to the head coach of the violating team. But, according the injunction report, GHSA executive director Dr. Robin Hines acknowledged at a hearing this week that the GHSA has the authority to issue warnings instead, as has done so, if circumstances warrant.
The GHSA seeds the Class A brackets with a point system, one that ranks teams based on a formula that considers the wins and losses of all teams and their opponents. Schools had until April 23 to appeal their power rating. It was then that Irwin County made an issue of Charlton’s pitching count violation.
It was the conclusion of the court that Irwin County did not file its complaint of the pitch-count infraction within the required seven days of the violation, that GHSA executive director Hines and not the GHSA’s appeals board, made the final ruling, which is against procedure; and that the executive director did not notify Charlton County of Irwin County’s appeal in a timely way that would allow a counter-appeal.
If Charlton gets credit for winning the Lanier game, which it won 6-3 in real time, Charlton and Irwin would each have 12-2 records in region play. Charlton would be the region champion because of having swept Irwin of two games in the regular season.
The GHSA, which argued its case in court Tuesday, released this statement Wednesday afternoon and declined further comment:
‘’Because of a legal injunction placed on the GHSA Wednesday, all Class A-Public second round baseball series are being suspended until further notice.
‘’While we hope to have this matter resolved quickly, we do not anticipate it being finalized in time to start the series on the scheduled date of Thursday, May 3. All other second-round series are to proceed as scheduled.
‘’We will notify all participating schools and game officials as soon as we are notified by the court.
‘’We apologize for any inconvenience this may create.’’
Another south Georgia team, Clinch County, reportedly was in route to Chickamauga to play Gordon Lee when given word of the postponemet.
