ORANGE – Orange Lutheran announced that it has forfeited two football victories because the team used an ineligible player in those games.
The player had transferred to Orange Lutheran before this school year. He was cleared to play when Orange Lutheran concluded that the player had made the valid change of residence required for immediate athletic eligibility. A recheck on his residency revealed that the change of residence had not been made.
The Lancers will forfeit their wins over Northwestern in Florida and Rancho Cucamonga, their first two games of this season.
Orange Lutheran made the announcement in a meeting with local media members in a school office with five Orange Lutheran leaders present: school executive director Mary Scott, head of school Dr. Jack Preus, vice principal Jon Spencer, athletic director Karen Kekipi and football head coach Rod Sherman.
Preus said the school had done its due diligence when it first cleared the student-athlete’s eligibility. Then, in August, questions arose when Orange Lutheran received information from the CIF Southern Section, the governing body of high school athletics in much of Southern California.
“We were made aware through CIF who presented to us that they received an anonymous tip that we think it is possible that one of (our) athletes is in violation of VCR (valid change of residence) paperwork,” Preus said Tuesday. “And we discovered through our investigative process some concerns.”
Preus said Orange Lutheran made home visits and met with the athlete’s family and concluded that the required change of residence had not occurred.
Orange Lutheran’s overall record drops to 2-6. The Lancers are 1-2 in the Trinity League. St. John Bosco is in first place in the Trinity League at 3-0, Mater Dei and Santa Margarita are 2-1, Servite is 1-2 and JSerra is 0-3.
Orange Lutheran plays Santa Margarita on Friday and Servite next week, the final week of the regular season.
The forfeitures do not affect Orange Lutheran’s rating at HSratings.com, the website that provides ratings that the CIF Southern Section uses to place teams into playoff divisions and to seed them in those divisions.
On Tuesday afternoon, Orange Lutheran was No. 7 in the HSratings.com rankings of CIF-SS teams.
The top three finishers in a six-team league like the Trinity League are automatic qualifiers for the CIF-SS football playoffs. The other three teams can qualify as at-large teams if there are berths in their playoff divisions that have not been filled by automatic qualifiers.
Kekipi said Orange Lutheran will strengthen its eligibility process.
“As we are reanalyzing our internal process,” she said, “do we have the ability to increase home visits, do we have the ability to have them come in and download documents firsthand, do we have the ability to have further interviews and conversations related to that. Those are the steps we are going to take.”
Sherman said he wants his football program to grow from the setback.
“Hopefully through this process people will see that Orange Lutheran is going to be different,” he said. “This is not a knock on our Trinity League brethren, but we’re going to be different and we’re going to do it right at the highest levels.”