WILMINGTON – Shortly after the New Hanover County Track and Field Championships ended Wednesday night – and through subsequent official results sent later – it was declared that the Ashley had won the girls title, joining the champion Eagle boys.
But Hoggard Coach Billy Mason was sure something didn’t add up and later he did a recheck of the results and it turned out he was correct. Mix-ups in the in input of the 4×100 relay and in the 100-meter dash changed the scoring and Hoggard has now officially been declared the New Hanover County girls champion by the smallest of margins – 118.5 points to 117 for Ashley.
“I always check the results after a meet,” Mason said. “You have young kids doing the results and putting them in the computer and there is always the possibility of mistakes. There were two or three mistakes.
“They had Ashley winning the 4×10 relay and we won that event, and there were also a couple of other minor scoring changes. I sent the corrected results to (Laney’s Sam) Coach Bobbitt, but it was late.”
Mason said he was happy for his girls but felt bad for the Ashley team.
“It’s unfortunate for Ashley because they were so excited about winning their first title, but good for us,” Mason said.
Ashley Coach Ryan Hauck was disappointed, but said his girls would use it as motivation.
“It is what it is,” Hauck said. “It’s really disappointing we didn’t get the win, but the truth is when the scores were rechecked and recalculated we didn’t. We had to change up some things on the relays and we put some new girls in there, so we’ll see what happens at the (Mideastern 4A) conference (May 1 at Ashley).
“I talked to the girls and they now know they can compete at a high level so we’re going to use that as a motivation for the rest of the year,” Hauck said.
Team Scores (updated): 1. Hoggard 118.5; 2. Ashley 117; 3. Laney 83; 4. Ne Hanover 48.5; 5. Coastal Christian 1.
Click here to read the previous story, which includes individual results.
