Opinion: Win, lose and tie all in the same day?

By Randy Stevens

San Marcos — Imagine this coaching predicament.

One minute you’re told that you have won a district championship.

Eight hours later, you’re told differently, and have to break the news to all the members of your team, other coaches, the press and everyone else you had told earlier.

Then, after a slight bit of brainstorming, a decision is made that your team will instead own a share of the district title.

That’s a pretty solid description of the wild and wacky day San Marcos head cross country coach Eloy Collazo had to absorb last Saturday after the District 17-4A cross country meet in Lockhart.

“It’s was incredibly crazy day, but at least they got it right in the end,” Collazo said.

Confused? That’s understandable. So here’s how Saturday went down for the Lady Rattlers.

It was originally ruled that San Marcos had won the 17-4A crown by the slimmest of margins, holding off the Lady Rebels of Hays by one point. But later in the day, after going back over the results, Lockhart officials noticed a scoring mistake that proved to be costly for San Marcos.

Elgin was the only school in the meet without enough runners to form a team, thus four individuals ran for Elgin instead of a team. When the team results were initially added up, meet officials forgot to take out the individual scores from Elgin, which included two runners in the Top 10.

When the numbers were recalculated, Hays and San Marcos were tied, and district rules state the sixth runner’s time will be used as the tiebreaker for the district title. Hays runner Sarah Alexander placed 28th, while San Marcos’ sixth runner Kathryn Walpole placed 32nd, allowing Hays to capture the title.

But hold on. Knowing that this was a very unjust thing do to a group of high school girls, district meet officials ruled late Saturday evening that both teams would share the 17-4A title.

Technically the district title means very little other than a trophy in the case, as both teams advance to the Class 4A, Region III meet to be held this weekend in Humble.

But for the Lady Rattlers, the title means a bit more.

It marks the first time in more than 20 years that a SMHS girls team has claimed a cross country title.

“It was tough having to call everyone and tell them that we didn’t win the title, then we hear the final ruling and everyone seemed all right with that,” Collazo said. “Still, what these girls accomplished was amazing considering how strong of a district we’re in.”

That district includes Lockhart, a school that has immense pride in its cross country program with numerous state titles.

That considered, a conspiracy theorist might think that something was a little fishy with the way the meet ended and was resolved. Not the case, as human error was the only thing to blame.

The main thing is that the right decision was made, even though there are going to be two different trophies for the same title in different cases.

Coincidence? I’d like to think so

A week or two ago, I wrote about how fickle football fans are usually ready to run a coach out of town when that certain coach — in this case, Texas State’s Brad Wright was used as an example — doesn’t fulfill expectations.

Low and behold what happens next? The Bobcats roll off three wins in a row, including last week’s major upset over 11th-ranked Stephen F. Austin.

Now if my memory bank serves correctly, which isn’t always the case, didn’t this same football program do the same thing last season when I sank my chastising teeth into a column about how the program was headed the wrong way after an embarrassing loss to Southern Utah in 2008?

After my column last season, the Bobcats went on to win seven six out of their eight games, including five SLC games to win the conference title and a bid to the FCS Playoffs.

And guess what game this year’s criticism followed? Yep, Southern Utah.

This makes ’Ol Randy wonder if his picture shows up on the team’s bulletin board after opinion pieces like the before mentioned.

Perhaps a dart board is more like it.

Whatever the case, good to see that the Bobcats’ ship is sailing in the right direction again.

Randy Stevens is Sports Editor of the San Marcos Daily Record. Contact him at rstevens@sanmarcosrecord.com