Shootout to be re-played on Tuesday.

Written Sunday October 30th at 6:00 PM

The MHSAA made a decision that could have a big impact if we have an all Red semifinal or not.

The league said that the Troy Athens/Macomb Dakota regional final shootout will be replayed after Macomb Dakota appealed and won its case so it means that both teams will have to go back to Troy Athens to have their shootout on Tuesday at 4 PM with the winner going to Troy High School to go up against Rochester on that same night in the MHSAA State Semifinals.

Troy Athens, which won 3-2 and 4-3 on penalties celebrated their first regional title in two decades on Friday night but it looks like the Red Hawks will have to try to win it again on Tuesday.

There was a ruling on Saturday night that in their findings league officials said that it’s procedure was incorrectly applied when during the shootout, it was determined that the onsite officials in the game voided a Macomb Dakota soccer player’s goal that was eligible for shooting out of order.

MHSAA Soccer tournament policies doesn’t require that the players shoot in any particular order.

This was an MHSAA tournament policy that was misapplied not a National Federation of State High Associations rule that was violated. If it was a NFSHA rule, then it cannot be changed.

The shootout score will be 3-3 and both teams will have their fourth shooter kicking and the score will be 2-2.

Thoughts:

This is an interesting decision that the MHSAA made but it was the right decision but there will be feelings hurt on both sides especially for the Red Hawks. If Troy Athens loses this shootout, then they would feel they had got robbed by the MHSAA. If the Red Hawks win this shootout, then it would feel like they had won it fairly and move onto playing Rochester at Troy that same night.

We’ll see what happens.