The Georgia High School Association announced on its website Thursday that the second round of the Class A public school baseball playoffs has been rescheduled for Monday and Tuesday. The third round will be moved to May 11-12, next Friday and Saturday.
Gordon Lee and Trion are among the teams affected.
"The GHSA has just been advised by our attorney that a ruling from the Georgia Court of Appeals will most likely not be rendered until sometime tomorrow, Friday," the statement read. "We hope to have this matter finalized as soon as possible, but we need to plan for the delays this matter has created."
The GHSA halted all Class A public second-round series Wednesday after an interlocutory injunction was ordered on behalf of the Charlton County School System in the Charlton County Supreme Court. The 13-page injunction order can be read at https://bit.ly/2KwBB1w.
While the GHSA has said the playoffs will resume Monday, John Lairsey, superintendent of the Charlton County School System, said in a news release the GHSA ignored Wednesday's ruling that games were to begin Thursday.
Lairsey's statement:
The GHSA has published that the Class A-Public baseball playoffs have been "suspended by legal injunction until further notice. This is not true. The last line of the superior court's order reads: '[t]he GHSA shall be required to play the remaining games as scheduled, beginning on May 3, 2018.' The truth is that the GHSA has elected to voluntarily suspend play rather than abide by the Court's ruling. We are disappointed that the GHSA has elected to go this route and suspend play.
We believe this dispute is not about baseball; it is not about balls and strikes, or who won a game. It is about whether the governing body of interscholastic competition in the State of Georgia, charged with promoting and modeling fairness and honesty to our students, is accountable to its members or if it is a totally lawless organization.
Again, the facts of this case are listed with great detail in the superior court order referenced above. If the GHSA can violate its constitution as it did in this case, there is no point in having a constitution at all. We hope all member schools agree with us that the GHSA is and should be accountable to its members, and must treat us with the fairness required by its constitution.
The GHSA has appealed the decision to a state court, but as of Thursday night a ruling on the appeal, or even when it will be held, had not been announced.
Contacted through email, Lairsey replied when asked if the Charlton school system would seek further litigation, "Although GHSA has appealed the decision, we have not been informed of a time when the appeal will be heard."
Meanwhile, Trion's series at Irwin County and Gordon Lee's home series against Clinch County are on hold. The Bulldogs, who traveled to Ocilla on Wednesday in preparation for the series, returned home Thursday and will, if the schedule holds, make the five-hour trip again Sunday.
In a story in Thursday's Times Free Press, it was reported that the matter began because Charlton County turned itself in to the GHSA for exceeding the pitch-count limit in a regular-season victory against Irwin County. While Irwin County was affected when Charlton County was forced to forfeit, with Irwin County becoming the Region 2 champion, Charlton County exceeded the pitch count over a two-day period, including a March 10 win against Lanier County.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6296. Follow him on Twitter @youngsports22.