Lone Peak Football To Forfeit Every Game Of 2019 Season

MIDVALE, Utah – The Lone Peak Knights football team is forfeiting five wins from its 2019 schedule, as first reported by the Amy Donaldson of the Deseret News.

The defending 6A football champion football team will forfeit all of its games this season as a penalty for playing an ineligible player.

“A panel of Executive Committee members found in a hearing Wednesday that Lone Peak’s football program would forfeit five victories due to the playing of an ineligible player,” an employee of the Utah High School Activities Association told KSL Sports.

The decision came from a panel of principals who serve on the UHSAA executive committee. It was a unanimous decision with a 5-0 vote.

The Knights move from a record of 5-4 to 0-9 with the decision.

Lone Peak principal Scott Sumner told the Deseret News that when the player showed up for summer workouts, the football coach told the young man he couldn’t participate until he “was eligible.”

The player filled out the required paperwork and registered for school.

According to the Deseret News, “Sumner said the young man made a mistake when asked if he’d attended another high school, as he thought the question meant high schools in Utah and he was new to the state. Clicking no to that answer meant the file would show up as eligible when administrators or coaches checked it, even though his file should have been flagged as eligibility-pending because he would have been considered a transfer student. When it came to Sumner’s attention through a random conversation about the student, the principal immediately called association officials, as well as the region’s other principals, and reported the problem.”

The region board of managers, which is comprised of the principals of the schools in the region, reviewed the situation and decided not to enforce forfeiture of games as a punishment. That decision was then overturned by the UHSAA.

”Alpine School District is greatly disappointed to learn that UHSAA has overturned a unanimous Region IV decision to penalize the Lone Peak High School football team, regarding a clerical error that was discovered on ‘Register My Athlete,’” said Alpine District spokeswoman Kimberly Bird. “The error was caught last week by the school administration and immediately reported to the Region 4 chair. This type of overturning of a decision, by the UHSAA, over an honest mistake on one question for one student, should have a consequence that matches the error.”

The Alpine School District has backed Lone Peak’s move to appeal the decision.

If the punishment stands, it could affect teams in the first round of the playoffs.

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