KD Country 94 & Z 96.3 Sports learned Tuesday morning that the Kansas State High School Activities Association reversed their intital ruling and Beloit Senior Bryce Black will be allowed to wrestle at the 3-2-1A State Tournament this weekend in Hays.
Black was originally deemed ineligible for post-season competition by the KSHSAA due to Rule 30-2-2, which states: A student who is enrolled at the start of a season of sport, must be a member of the squad for the majority of the scheduled varsity contests, in order to be eligible for post-season competition. Black joined the team at the time of the Beloit Invitational on January 24th. Beloits schedule is top loaded with dual competitions, so they can wrestle mostly tournament matches in the second semester. In the end, the Trojans had eight events leading up to the Beloit Invitational, including four of their six scheduled dual events. Including and after the Beloit Invitational, there were only five scheduled events, one of which, the Minneapolis dual, was cancelled.
The Regional Tournament took place on February 22nd, which means that Black was a member of the wrestling team at Beloit for almost a full month before competing in the postseason. Considering the amount of time off during the semester break, Black was a member of the team for half of the year, just not half of the contests.
All of those facts were presented to KSHSAA by Beloit Athletic Director Casey Seyfert in an effort to get Black reinstated to the State Tournament. He also pointed out that Black was injured during the State Championship football game and not cleared by his doctor until the point that he joined the team.
With all of that in mind, earlier today, KSHSAA reversed their initial ruling and felt that Beloit was not intentionally trying to abuse the rule, so they made the exception to let Black compete at State.
Black and the rest of the Trojan wrestlers will begin competition at the 3-2-1A State Tournament in Hays on Friday. The first round is slated to begin at 9:00 a.m.
