One North Carolina team that was bound for the NCHSAA football playoffs a week ago will now be following them from home after a brawl broke out during a game last weekend.
According to HighSchoolOT.com,
Freedom (Morganton, N.C.) will be barred from postseason play after five players were ejected from a game against Chase (Forest City, N.C.)
In a game that Freedom won, 55-13, the brawl ensued following a Freedom punt in the third quarter. Two Freedom players were ejected for fighting while three others were ejected for going onto the field during the fight.
Per NCHSAA rules, a team is ineligible for postseason play if it has more than three players ejected for fighting in a single game or six ejected throughout the entire season.
Freedom head coach Mike Helms
told the Hickory Record that the three players ejected for entering the field were actually offensive starters ready to begin Freedom's next set of downs.
"Here's the bottom line," Helms said. "You can't say kids were fighting when they weren't. How can they be ejected for fighting. … they weren't."
Freedom has a 9-1 record heading into its regular-season finale against Patton. According to HighSchoolOT.com, that may have been good enough for a first-round bye in the NCHSAA Class AAA western regional.
Now they'll never know.
