By Mitch Stephens
MaxPreps.com
The wild and crazy roller coaster ride that is Placer’s football season took yet another twist, this time through an Oakland (Calif.) courtroom on Friday.
To the surprise of many, a possible victory. A stalemate to be sure.
An Alameda County judge issued a restraining order against the scheduled Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV football game Friday night between Colfax and Oakdale, which is postponed or possibly canceled until a ruling on Monday.
The National Center for Youth Law, a foster child advocacy group, filed a court action Thursday on behalf of a Placer player who was ruled ineligible by the SJS for failure to file proper hardship paperwork.
The player, a foster child, transferred from Bethel (Vallejo) to the Auburn school during the summer.
Along with the player’s ineligibility, the SJS ruled that Placer had to forfeit three victories that would have qualified the Hillmen for the SJS playoffs and pushed Colfax out.
When a three-person appeals board of the California Interscholastic Federation, the state’s governing board, failed to overturn the SJS decision on Nov. 15, Placer’s season seemed to be doomed.
But the advocacy group took over for Placer’s legal team, which was made of team parents, and evidently gave the judge reason to pause.
If the judge rules Monday that Placer was treated unjustly and the forfeits are overturned, then the Hillmen will play at Oakdale in a first-round game.
When that game would occur is anyone’s guess. It would likely push back a semifinal match-up against the winner of tonight’s Bear River at Dixon game.
After Friday’s ruling, Placer coach Joey Montoya planned to scout the Bear River at Dixon game but maintains emphatically that he’s not putting the cart in front of the horse.
“We’re pleasantly surprised by the decision,” said Montoya, whose team went 6-4 on the field, but 3-7 if the forfeits are maintained. “But it’s obviously not a done deal. At least the fight is still on.”
Montoya attended the court proceedings and gave his team the good news with a phone call at school. The team was inside a classroom awaiting the results.
On Saturday, Montoya called each of his players individually, giving them the bad news after the school’s appeal was denied.
“Today’s call was much easier that’s for sure,” Montoya said. “It’s been a real roller coaster of emotions. We’ve tried to stay positive and I think we’ve handled the whole thing with some class and dignity. We’ve just been standing up for what we think is right.”
With that said, Montoya said he felt bad for Oakdale and Colfax, especially the latter which had to turn around its team bus around en route to Friday’s game.
“We feel bad but at the same time it’s not something we did,” he said. “This whole process could have been avoided earlier.”
E-mail Mitch Stephens at mstephens@maxpreps.com.
See Sac-Joaquin Section website.