OPINION – Ah, November. It’s the time of the year when playoff action and state championships are all the buzz in high school sports. Well, it used to be anyhow. Welcome to a new era in extracurricular activities, one in which the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission (or WVSSAC for short) takes a backseat to the West Virginia judicial system. Injunction is the word of the day.
Greenbrier West qualified for a school-record eighth straight Class A volleyball state tournament appearance on November 7. The victory was supposed to send the Lady Cavaliers to the Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center for first round action on Tuesday, November 12. Instead, momentum was halted due to not one, but two injunctions that will either allow the tournament to proceed as originally seeded or will add a play-in game for a ninth team.
The format for the volleyball state tournament is two teams from each region filling eight spots in the state tournament field. Schools compete in sectional and regional tournaments with two teams from each region advancing. Greenbrier West competes in Region III and defeated Montcalm to earn their spot in the field. The other Region III co-finalist was River View.
The problem with the 2024 volleyball tourney arose in Class A Region I. St. Marys and Magnolia both qualified on the court. A third school, Tyler Consolidated, received an injunction on October 30 to place their volleyball and cheer teams in Class A, matching the classification their football team was placed in on August 12 by the Review Board. The problem is the court order came after the sectional tournament had been completed. To solve that conundrum, Tyler County and St. Marys agreed to play each other to comply with the court order. Tyler County defeated St. Marys, eliminating the Blue Devils. Not so fast said Trinity Christian, the opponent of the Section I winner in the Region I co-final. Trinity’s position was that they should play St. Marys, the rightful champion of section I. Trinity sought and obtained an injunction of their own, theirs coming through the Monongalia County court system. Trinity and St. Marys played with the Blue Devils winning. St. Marys was back in. Trinity out. Tyler County, who knows? Tyler was left out of regional competition completely. Did you get all of that?
The eight-team state tournament was modified to include a ninth team, Tyler County, as the eighth seed facing nine seed St. Marys in a play-in game. The winner of that game would face #1 seed East Hardy. The Cougars balked at that idea, stating Tyler County should not be eligible for the state tournament because they never played a regional game. The Hardy County Circuit Court agreed and granted an injunction on behalf of East Hardy High School. This forced the WVSSAC to postpone the Class A Volleyball State Tournament indefinitely on November 10 until the contradicting injunctions could be sorted out.
On Saturday, November 16, the WVSSAC released a statement regarding the legal battle.
“Following the entry of an order from the Hardy County Circuit Court, the WVSSAC is now faced with conflicting directives in relation to a prior order issued by the Tyler County Circuit Court regarding Class A Volleyball.
To address this inconsistency, the WVSSAC will seek clarification and guidance from the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia….”
A ZOOM meeting to update Class A volleyball participants was conducted by the WVSSAC Board of Directors on Monday morning, November 18. The following statement was provided by Greenbrier West athletic director Jared Robertson regarding the details of the meeting:
Due to conflicting injunctions from two separate circuit court judges, the status of the Class A State Volleyball Tournament at the request of the WVSSAC must be decided upon by the West Virginia State Supreme Court. This request is being filed today, with a request for an expedited ruling to be able to determine the days of the tournament as soon as possible.
Final preparations are being made with West Virginia State University (WVSU) to potentially host the tournament as soon as possible in the coming days. Due to the timing and unexpected delay, the WVSSAC has committed to NOT playing during Thanksgiving week, so unless a ruling would happen fairly quickly, the next hope would be to have the tournament the first week of December.
The general schedule of last week’s tournament would be expected to be followed, with first round games happening early on the first day, semi-finals the evening of the first day, and then the championship on the second day. With the potential of an extra team in the 8-9 game, this game could possibly be played the night before allowing a regular schedule following that. There was a request for the championship to be backed up to not be 9am as well, but all scheduling final discussions will be made with WVSU and the WVSSAC once the days have been determined. The WVSSAC will be meeting with the WVSU athletic department tomorrow to discuss logistics of possible days, game times, parking, etc. to go along with the tournament.
While we are very disappointed that our tournament has been delayed, we are committed as a school to making sure our volleyball team has every opportunity to be successful and to win a state championship. When further information is available, we will do everything possible to make our community available quickly.
Jared Robertson,
Athletic Director
Greenbrier West High School
Greenbrier West is the second seed in the tournament and is set to face Region III opponent, River View, in the opening round. More details will be released as they become available.
