Ogden's boys soccer team stripped of three regular-season wins

Ogden coach Sterling Castle told me he found out that something might be amiss about a month ago.
Two days after a talented first-year player on his team sustained a season-ending neck injury during a 1-0 loss to Morgan, Castle received a telephone call from his athletic director to say that the injured player might not have been eligible to play for the Tigers during the five region games in which he had already participated.
Castle was faced with a pretty straight-forward decision: ‘I could self-report it or say nothing and see what happens.’
He opted for the first option.
Ogden High reported its violation to the school’s region, Region 11, and Castle and Co. has been fretting what the outcome would be ever since.
And on the eve of the 2008 playoffs (in which Ogden was slated to be the No. 3 seed from Region 11), the region held a big hearing on Monday and ruled that the Tigers must forfeit the three league wins they earned in which the ineligible player had participated.
Accordingly, Ogden, which has been ranked in the Top 5 for most of the year but finished just outside the final rankings, dropped from Region 11′s No. 3 seed to the No. 4 seed, as they flip-flopped with arch-rival Ben Lomond.
Ogden now faces third-ranked Park City in the first round, while Ben Lomond gets No. 2 Judge. No other playoff seeds were affected.
As soon as I asked Castle what had happened when he called me Monday evening, the veteran Ogden coach immediately got the 64,000-dollar question out of the way.
‘I didn’t try to cheat,’ he said. ‘If I’d known he was ineligible, I wouldn’t have kept him in the first place.’
From everything Castle told me, it seems to me that a perfect storm of mistakes on all fronts resulted in what is, as the Ogden coach put it, ‘a very embarrassing situation.’
The story began months ago when Castle, who led Ogden to a state championship in 2005, actually turned in his resignation papers because his job with Union Pacific had changed ‘ he was going to become a conductor and wouldn’t be able to be around the team enough.
However, when Ogden High couldn’t find any suitable candidates to replace him, Castle agreed to stay on this year for the good of the program and brought in former Roy coach Jason Steiner to help when he couldn’t be around.
Flash forward to the last day of tryouts. A talented kid from El Salvador, whom had just enrolled at Ogden High, showed up and was good enough to make the team. At the time, Castle and Steiner were under the assumption that the player had just arrived in the country and therefore assumed he would eligible.
‘I didn’t know he was ineligible because, as far as I knew, he was just here,’ said Castle.
However, the player had actually been enrolled at Roy last October, a fact that Castle didn’t find out until he received a call from his athletic director in the middle of the regular season.
And what has resulted since ‘ from worrying to presenting their case to Region 11 officials to waiting ‘ has been difficult to say the least for Castle and Co.
Of the player who was ruled ineligible, Castle said, ‘He’s a great kid.’ However, a variety of factors went into the player winding up on the field when he shouldn’t have, and Castle has been working with Ogden High to make sure what happened doesn’t happen again.
Because of the incident, ‘Ogden High . . . has had meetings to amend their eligibility and transfer requirements,’ said Castle.
Now that Region 11 has made its decision regarding this situation, all Ogden can do is suit ‘em up and get back to the business at hand.
Castle went out of his way to say he’s sorry for Park City, which earned the No. 1 seed from Region 10 but now faces the unenviable task of having to play a really good team in the first round.
‘I feel bad for Park City, personally,’ said Castle. ‘They’re the ones who are getting screwed . . . If I was them, I’d be (mad).’
The unfortunate situation, however, does set up what should be a scintillating first-round contest. More so than just about anybody in Class 3A, Ogden and Park City have enjoyed a phenomenal postseason rivalry that has yielded a number of epic encounters.
The last such meeting occurred in 2006 when Park City beat Ogden 2-1 in OT of the first round en route to eventually winning the 3A state title.
‘We’ve got a demon to exorcise, a monkey to get off our back up at Park City,’ said Castle.