The McCurtain County Court ruled Friday that the Wright City Lumberjax eligible to participate in the Class A state baseball tournament.
So the OSSAA took a page from the Lumberjax playbook.
In a release, the OSSAA stated that it will “appeal the judge’s decision to the Oklahoma Supreme Court on Monday morning, and temporarily suspend play of the Class A tournament beginning with the game scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Friday, May 3, until the appeal is determined.”
This means that three games of the quarterfinal games will be played, but the game originally set for Sterling and Wright City (which is listed on the OSSAA website as a forfeit) will not be played until after the hearing.
Therefore, the three other winning teams had the opportunity to use their best pitchers and then rest them for use in the next game. If the Wright City/Sterling game is played, the winning team will not have the chance to rest the pitcher used because the tournament will start up at that point and will keep to the two (three) day schedule. This is a significant advantage to the other teams.