Forfeit won’t extend EV’s season

Once again, Eastern View High School’s football team is just barely on the outside of the playoff picture looking in.

News broke Monday that Battlefield District rival James Monroe would have to forfeit six of its seven victories this season because the Yellow Jackets used an ineligible player. The forfeitures would give both Eastern View and Culpeper County High School, now 4-6, one more victory, though James Monroe had filed an appeal with the VHSL on Monday.

EVHS’s record improved to 7-3, matching the number of victories the Cyclones recorded in their debut season a year ago.

But even with the extra victory Eastern View was edged out of a playoff spot.

Final pairings weren’t available until late Monday night, but EVHS coach Greg Hatfield said his team wouldn’t have quite enough power points to make the Region I, Division 4 tournament field.

In the end, it was a 23-21 loss to Louisa on a field goal with 10 seconds left that kept the Cyclones out of their first postseason appearance, but Hatfield wasn’t complaining about not being able to take a back door into the playoffs.

“We don’t need to get in like that,” Hatfield said. “We’d take it, but we’re not extremely disappointed that we didn’t get in like that.”

Last season, Eastern View could have wrapped up a playoff berth with a victory over Martinsburg (W.Va.) in the final week of the regular season, but lost.

James Monroe, which played its regular season finale against Courtland on Monday night, was the defending Group AA, Division 3 state champion and was set for a repeat trip to the playoffs this year.

According to the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, JM coach and athletic director Rich Serbay was preparing the school’s playoff roster when he discovered that the Yellow Jackets had inadvertently played a fifth-year student in six games.