Instead of ending in the second week of May, the SEMO baseball conference title will be decided in the second week of April.
Athletic directors of schools in the eight-team SEMO Conference met Tuesday and decided that when conference teams play each other twice, the first games between conference teams will count as written in the bylaws, not the second games as most of the coaches understood.
The confusion began when the athletic directors decided this past summer to change the bylaws of the conference and make the first games count. Because many of the conference games were scheduled in the last week of the season, they reasoned, it would be almost impossible to reschedule rain-outs.
But the coaches, not aware of the athletic directors' decision, met prior to the season and agreed that they didn't want the conference decided in the first three weeks of the baseball season so the second games would count.
Schedules were printed out and distributed among the coaches at the coaches' preseason meeting.
The three new teams in the conference Kelly, Chaffee and Scott City play each of the original teams just once so their games would've counted regardless of Wednesday's decision.
With the ruling, the conference race is practically over with Sikeston, at 5-0, having all but wrapped up the title. Sikeston, which needs just one win to clinch the title, still has to play Chaffee and Jackson. The Indians and Red Devils have both already beat Sikeston in Notre Dame's tournament, but even if Sikeston lost both remaining conference games, the best any team could do would be to share a championship.
The rest of the teams, many of them not knowing they were playing conference games, all have at least two losses. Notre Dame, Cape Central, Chaffee and Jackson each have two losses. Kelly, Scott City and Poplar Bluff are out of the race for first.
The ruling was most costly to Notre Dame and Cape Central.
Instead of standing 1-0 in the conference, the Tigers are 3-2.
Notre Dame, which pitched its No. 4 hurler against Sikeston thinking it was not a conference game, is 4-2 with only Scott City left to play. Notre Dame avenged the loss two days later beating Sikeston 6-3 with its No. 2 pitcher Mark Ostendorf. Had the second games counted, Notre Dame would be 2-0 with five more league games to play.
"I'm very disappointed," said first-year Notre Dame coach Jeff Graviett. "I'm new to this and I don't understand how things work all the time. The coaches made a decision and I assumed that that's what would stand.
"The first I heard anything about (the bylaws) was Saturday. I was focused on our tournament and wanted to save our pitching for that. I just feel for these kids."
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