Pinning the blame

By Raunak Banerjee Staff Writer AN OPINION

Wheaton’s wrestling season came to an abrupt end a day before the Feb. 28 wrestling competition at Blair after Wheaton head coach Justin Ellis allowed a non-Wheaton student to pose as a Wheaton wrestler. While using an “ineligible student athlete” is a violation of county enforced athletics rules and should warrant punishment for Ellis, ripping a whole season away from the hands of all Wheaton wrestlers students is not only excessive but extremely unfair to the students who had their dreams of competing in the state championship crushed so suddenly.

It is puzzling why the students are being punished despite having no involvement nor any say in the situation. “I mean, even if some of us were aware, there wasn’t much we could do because we can’t control [Ellis’] actions nor anybody else’s,” Wheaton wrestler Josh Saintilma said in an interview with Silver Chips.

Wheaton principal Joshua H. Munsey appealed the decision to the MPSSAA Appeals Committee on Feb. 13, but after a hearing, the association upheld the decision. Two days later, Munsey appealed again. This time, he did so directly to the state superintendent of schools, Mohammed Choudhury, who rejected the appeal and included a list of grievances that referenced the Code of Maryland Regulations (COMAR).

the student, or the coach. Only violations from the entirety of the school team can warrant the cancellation of the entire season, yet despite this situation being a violation by only the coach, the MPSSAA did not rule as such.

In late January, MCPS received information regarding an ineligible student athlete competing for Wheaton. After an investigation, MCPS promptly fired Ellis, and the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association (MPSSAA) also deemed Wheaton ineligible for championship honors at the current dual meet and individual postseasons, thus ending the team’s wrestling season.

The ineligible wrestler in question was a student from the local Jewish Day School (JDS), which is not part of MCPS. After another Wheaton wrestler was released from the roster earlier in the year, Ellis decided to take the JDS student under his wing and have him pose as the wrestler who left.

As an active member of the Wheaton Wrestling Alliance, Wheaton’s intramural wrestling program, Ellis was fully aware that he was violating rules, but he did not expect that the county would react so excessively. “I take full responsibility for this. But [MCPS] should not have come down on the kids like they did,” he said in an interview with MoCo 360. “I understand if they want to forfeit a match or two, but cutting off their entire season is completely out of line.”

COMAR is the official state-approved document that determines how Maryland’s government should function; Section 13a corresponds with the Maryland Board of Education. Regulation 13a.06.03.02, which regards eligibility for interscholastic athletics, states, “Students shall be officially registered and attending the member MPSSAA school they are authorized to attend under regulations of the local school system. They may represent only the school in which they are registered and at which it is anticipated they will complete their graduation requirements.”

While Ellis clearly violated this regulation, the punishment from the MPSSAA

In his email response to Munsey, Choudhury asserted that the students were well aware of the ineligible student athlete, and explained that their “inaction” needed to be punished as a school eligibility violation. However, Choudhury also contradicts himself in the same email, acknowledging that the students did not violate any rules themselves, as he writes, “While student-athletes are not responsible for the coach’s actions, they are nonetheless responsible for their own actions or inactions...” This is extremely unfair to the students, as Choudhury is interpreting inaction as a violation of a “rule” which does not even exist in the very document he references.

By John Ernst Sports Editor

Cherry blossoms are blooming, allergies are back, and the temperature has bounced from 70 degrees to 30 degrees in just two days. It must be spring in D.C. Spring here in the DMV brings lots of new hope of warm weather and summer, but for Nationals fans like myself, springtime and opening day is a harsh reminder of six upcoming months of suffering.

The 2023 baseball season is upon us, and as I wrote in my 2022 postseason column, the sport could not be more full of hope.

The 2022 season showed that all underdogs have a chance, and that any team or player can surprise us.

their first full seasons. Grayson Rodriguez, a righty and Orioles No. 2 overall prospect, is also ranked No. 7 overall, and was called up in early April to make his debut.

Many of the Orioles’ challenges toward the end of last year were symptomatic of a lack of veteran talent with playoff experience.

New signees include righty Kyle Gibson, who will toe the bump on opening day, and second baseman Adam Frazier, who looks to bounce back following a lackluster 2022 season after securing All-Star honors in 2021.

It is also important to keep in mind that reporting Ellis would have been a huge risk for the student wrestlers, as many had worked with Ellis for years and would have wrestled under him for years to come. If a student were to take “action,” that relationship between them and Ellis would have effectively disappeared, and there was no guarantee from MCPS that the students would be protected in case the coach was not fired. Because of these stakes, the students’ inaction was justified and therefore should not be punished.

As the result of MPSSAA’s egregious overreach, the Knights’ wrestling season was unjustly ended. Even Blair students began protesting the cancellation with the “Where’s Wheaton” movement.

Just last month, the 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was a massive win for the sport, and the ending with Shohei Ohtani striking out Mike Trout couldn’t have been more poetic. The final between Japan and the U.S.—in which Japan triumphed to win its third WBC title—saw 42.4 percent of households in Japan watching live, despite it taking place on Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. in Japan.

This kind of momentum is what we needed heading into the new season—momentum that should kick the season in the right direction. Hope is alive for many teams, and although the perennial franchises will likely make a big push this year, one of the more ambitious teams is the local Baltimore Orioles, who are expected to build on last year’s winning season.

Meanwhile in D.C., there is considerably less hope. Patrick Corbin gets the ball for game one (oh boy) and the Nationals’ impressive spring training stats are the only thing fueling any potential. We knew this was coming.

After the 2019 offseason and the sale of Max Scherzer, Trea Turner, and Juan Soto, a rebuild was inevitable. The Nats are simply in the worst part of it.

did not fit the crime. According to Regulation 13a.06.03.05, which addresses penalties for failure to adhere to MPSSAA rules, all offenses are committed by one of three entities: the school team,

Not only did this situation undermine the school’s reputation, it damaged the morale of the students who worked hard all throughout the year for a chance to compete for their school and bond with teammates.

“Everybody was angry,” Saintilma said. “Because we just want to know what we [as students] actually did [to deserve this punishment].”

The Orioles have been basement dwellers for a good part of the last decade, having only won one American League East title in the past 25 years in 2014, but things are looking up for the franchise. After years of farming talent into the minor leagues, the team now has both sophomore catcher Adley Rutschman and infielder and MLB Pipeline’s No. 1 overall prospect Gunnar Henderson aiming to headline this year’s lineup in

Josiah Gray, Keibert Ruiz, and CJ Abrams are the highlights of the new team, and a potential talent in MacKenzie Gore could also make an impact. Slow progression is the name of the game. This team will not play well enough to have any All-Stars, and it’s unlikely the statistics will reflect exceptional play. If Josiah Gray has a 4+ ERA but an improving K/9, call it a win. The small wins and improvements will be essential this season.

Both the O’s and Nats will look to build off of last year, in different ways, but baseball is back in an exciting way that will undoubtedly provide us with highlights and surprises as it does every year.