In a strange twist of events, Lake Region State College’s losses to Williston State College last Monday were reverted to wins.
The women’s and men’s teams both lost to the Tetons. But WSC failed to fulfill the requirement of recertifying its players’ eligibility for the second semester, so the Tetons’ wins were overturned into losses. The games officially went down as 2-0 wins for their opponents.
NJCAA rules state that, for two-term sports, teams need to recertify their players before the 15th calendar day of the second semester. WSC failed to do so.
Though the game results were flipped, the individual stats for all players involved still count towards their season totals.
The LRSC women lost 63-50 on Monday. At the time, Royals head coach Colden Hutton noted how proud he was of his team for giving a good fight against a team that had previously beaten North Dakota State College of Science 83-79.
Now, the Tetons’ wins over both the Wildcats and Royals are in the books as losses.
“But yet, we still technically lost that game,” Hutton said. “And we’ve gotta build on it, and we’ve gotta improve and take it as a loss.”
The switch made LRSC’s conference record 4-0 going into this Sunday. The Royals played the same Science team that WSC had thrashed, and they lost a heartbreaker, 59-56. With a win, LRSC would have overtaken NDSCS for the top spot in the Mon-Dak with a 5-0 conference record. Instead, the Royals sit in second place at 4-1.
The WSC women sit at 16-4 and 2-2 in conference play. The two wins-turned-losses bumped them down to fourth place in the conference.
The LRSC men lost handily to WSC, 89-67, on Monday. The WSC men had also beaten NDSCS, 93-70. But the Tetons once again missed out on what would have been a perfect conference record, and now sit at fourth place in the Mon-Dak with records of 14-6 overall and 2-2 in conference.
“That’s why today was a pretty big one,” LRSC men’s head coach Jared Marshall said after his team fell 93-89 to NDSCS on Sunday. “Instead of being one back of Dawson, you’re two, and you’re kind of looking up at a couple other teams. So today was a big one, and we needed to get it done. And we didn’t.”
The Royals and Wildcats are both 3-2, with LRSC having a slight overall edge that puts it into second place. First-place Dawson Community College is 18-2 overall and 4-0 in Mon-Dak play.
WSC appeared to get its recertification figured out by Sunday, when both its teams took wins over Bismarck State College. The oversight was a massive detriment to the Tetons’ otherwise impressive season. And although the Royals had a tough Sunday on both the men’s and women’s side, it makes their path to a high standing in the Mon-Dak slightly clearer.