Referee Question... Start over or keep going?

[rulesguy]

This questions is regarding a "the Johnston weigh-in" scenario.

Situation: Multiple team dual event.

Weigh-ins: 9 teams weighing in with the home school head coach the only person supervising the weigh-in. Wrestler "John Doe" from school A steps on the scale and weighs in. His weight is recorder on "Jim Smith's" line by accident on the weigh-in sheet.

Dual Meet School A vs. School B: School A is sending their wrestler first and they send John Doe. School B sends their wrestler and the match starts. 1 minute into the match, school B goes to the table and tells the referee that John Doe never weighed in. The referee is ready to disqualify John Doe, when school A says that he did weigh in. After a lengthy process of talking with this coach from the host school, it is determined that John Doe did weigh in and the clerical error is corrected.

Question: School B wants the match to start over and resend, since they claim they had no knowledge that John Doe was an available wrestler. School A says the wrestler is eligible just continue. What do you do?

[helper]

Upon seeing wrestler A warmup the question should have been brought up. Both wrestlers reported to table in order they should wrestle. In future situations not only home coach but each school should weigh in their own athletes while host school watches.

The wrestler should have been allowed to wrestle and School Bs coach should have thought to ask why a kid they wanted to bump around didn't weighin.

[coachskp]

i think school B forfeits the right to a restart since the claim to ineligibility was not made when the wrestler was sent to the mat - on the other hand - i was involved with that exact situation - we weighed in - my guy did not get written down - he reported to the table - opponent immediately went to the official and my guy was DQ'd since he was not on the sheet - the Official record of weigh in - the other coach claimed he did not see him weigh in even though he mentioned at the time - "oh this kid is having a good season" - we ended up having to forfeit since we had reported an ineligible wrestler to the table - the other coach recognized this administrastive error on our part and capitilized on it - waiting until our guy reported to the table before going to the official - so - by strict interpretation of the rules that wrestler was not eligible to compete that day

[helper]

Bring triplicate form back!!! Coaches write kids name in that are weighing in

[rulesguy]

The referees talked about this question in depth through E-Mail and at our Meeting last night. We came to the following conclusion.

Since the wrestler did in fact weigh in and the clerical error could be corrected, then the wrestler would not be disqualified.

Since School A had to send first for the match and "John Doe" had to report first, it was the job of the opposing coach to verify what wrestler was sent to the table prior to sending his own wrestler. Thus, once it was determined that the wrestler was eligible the match should have continued from the point at which it was stopped and both wrestler should have been considered to have legally checked in.

Our What if: What if B had to send first?
If School B was required to send first, we concluded then that we would have reverted back to the beginning of the match because school B would not have know that John Doe was an eligible wrestler and may have chosen to send a different contestant or none at all. Reverting back to the beginning of the weight class gives school B the fair assessment of which competitor to send at the weight.

This is obviously a very obscure case and will probably not happen too often in the future, but it was a great talking point at least.

[luv2wrestle]

This is a coaching mistake it our job to check the weigh in sheet both Artie and myself are at fault because we both had mistakes on our sheets. It was fun either way