For Release: May 24th, 2000

Imagine if you will, coordinating a 98-event track meet, having an entries and results team enter all the results, double checking the figures, then coming up with the almost unbeiievable conclusion that a tie for first place resulted in aggregate points.

Then imagine, after reviewing all the event results the next day, discovering that a field event tie was not broken properly, resulting in the breaking of that unbelievable tie, by none other than a single point.

Then imagine that this single point brought to a close one of the longest winning streaks in S.D.S.S.A.A. sports history.

Well, this sort of sums up the week that I've had this week and this column is offered up by way of explaining the series of events that led up to this unfortunate conclusion.

Last week, the City Championships in Track and Field were hosted and an incredibly exciting, nip and tuck race between Lockerby and Lo-Ellen took place for the overall aggregate point title. After all events had been entered, and points between track and field events were tallied (they are compiled on separate computers during the meet), the result pointed to a dead heat at 710 points between the two schools.

I can't possibly imagine the odds against this happening even over the period of a hundred years, but even after some serious double checking, this appeared to be the unlikely result, and presentations ensued.

The next day, after merging the track and field results together, a process that facilitates the compiling of team and individual aggregate scores, it was discovered that a few field event tied results were not broken as they should have been. In the event in question, triple jump, upon a tied result from the athlete's best jump, the next best jump is used to break the tie and points award accordingly. While this was done successfully in the field, it was not entered as such in the computer, resulting in the single point reduction in Lo-Ellen's aggregate point total that reduced them to 709 points.

Needless to say, the Knights track team, guided by coach Joe Bacon, were devastated by the news that their 13-year aggregate point title had come to a close, especially under such unfortunate circumstances.

The problem, unquestionably, was the rush to produce aggregate results quickly but also the lack of time, during all the quirks and quarks that come to the fore when running track and field, that is permitted to double and triple check posted results. As a committee, I find we rely quite heavily on coaches and athletes to review posted results to verify individual event point totals and during this particular two-day event, I've lost count of the number of times we were asked to review a particular posting and upon review, came up with a slightly different result.

Nonetheless, I can't help feel a little disappointed in myself for not catching the error earlier, especially when it meant the difference between maintaining an unprecedented winning streak, or just falling short.

At this point, I can only offer apologies to the Knights, congratulations to the Vikings, and raise at the post-season meeting ways in which we might eliminate recurrences for future events.

As the saying goes, we do learn best from our mistakes.

N.O.S.S.A. SOCCER TOMMORROW

At time of publication, the results of the S.D.S.S.A.A. finals were not yet known, however the schedule for N.O.S.S.A. on Friday is set to go at Lily Creek as follows:

11am - Junior boys - Lockerby Composite versus Nipissing Representative

1pm - Girls A/AA - Winner of St. Benedict/Confederation versus Loser of Chippewa/Scollard Hall

1pm - Girls AAA - Winner of Lasalle/Lockerby versus Winner of Chippewa/Scollard Hall

3pm - Boys A/AA - Winner of St. Benedict/Heritage versus Loser of Northern/Widdifield

3pm - Boys AAA - Winner of Lo-Ellen/St Charles versus Winner of Northern/Widdifield

Best of luck to all S.D.S.S.A.A. teams - do us proud!

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