The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) announced today (October 26) that East St. Louis Senior High School’s football team will be forced to forfeit five of its nine regular-season victories from the 2010 season and all 10 of its victories from 2009, including three playoff victories, after the team was found to have used an ineligible player in the contests.
As the result of the forfeitures, East St. Louis Senior High School is no longer eligible for the 2010 IHSA Football Playoffs, which are scheduled to begin on Friday.
“No one wins in this type of situation,” said IHSA Executive Director Marty Hickman, “and while we appreciate the school’s cooperation with our investigation, member schools have an obligation to abide by our association by-laws, including the need to have clear enrollment processes in place and the ability to verify residence issues.”
The IHSA opened an investigation on one East St. Louis Senior High School football player after Week 5 of the regular-season. That player did not play after the fifth game and was eventually found to be ineligible on October 14, while a second player from the team was also found to be ineligible on October 22. Both investigations centered around issues related to IHSA Residency By-laws.
Information recently obtained from the St. Clair County State’s Attorney contradicted previous information from the investigation on one of the players that led to the forfeitures. The State’s Attorney verified that one of the players had a pre-trial electronic monitoring bracelet at an address in Belleville in April, 2009. The address associated with the bracelet was transferred to a residence in East St. Louis in September 2009, but remained there for just over a month before being transferred back to the original address in Belleville in October 2009.
East St. Louis Senior High School is scheduled first round playoff opponent in Class 7A, Belleville West, will now travel to play Belleville East in the first round of the playoffs. O’Fallon High School, which becomes the top seed in the quadrant as the result of earning a victory from an East St. Louis Senior High School forfeit, will now receive a bye in the first round and face the winner of Belleville East vs. Belleville West in the second round.
O’Fallon will host the second round game regardless of the result between Belleville East and Belleville West. The first round bye will also count as a home game for O’Fallon for hosting determination purposes moving forward in the playoffs.
“Certainly, the timing of this matter is less than ideal, but as much as some would have liked for us to move faster with this investigation, to do so would have been unfair to both the student-athletes and East St. Louis Senior High School. It was imperative for everyone involved that we gave due diligence to the process and uncovered all applicable information before reaching a decision, ” said Hickman.
The updated playoff seeding and schedule for the quadrant is located below:
| Seed |
School |
W-L |
Playoff Points |
| 1 |
O'Fallon |
8-1 |
38 |
| 2 |
Plainfield (South) |
8-1 |
34 |
| 3 |
Minooka |
8-1 |
33 |
| 4 |
Belleville (East) |
7-2 |
37 |
| 5 |
Quincy |
7-2 |
32 |
| 6 |
Bradley (B.-Bourbonnais) |
6-3 |
43 |
| 7 |
Belleville (West) |
5-4 |
42 |
CLASS 7A FIRST ROUND GAMES
(1) O’Fallon – BYE, plays winner of (4) vs. (7)
(7) Belleville (West) at (4) Belleville (East)
(6) Bradley (B.-Bourbonnais) at (2) Plainfield (South)
(5) Quincy at (3) Minooka
“After giving careful consideration to all options, we felt that the option that impacted the fewest amount of schools and would enable the playoffs to begin as planned was to adjust the quadrant in which East St. Louis Senior High School had been assigned,” added Hickman. “The fact of the matter is that we had a complete field of 256 teams on Saturday. To have included the first non-qualifier as a replacement for East St. Louis Senior High School in the field of qualifiers would have impacted nearly 100 schools, and, in the end, we didn’t believe it was fair to those schools that had made travel and scouting plans for their assigned first round games.”