Fullerton Won’t Play Vs. TCP

DAYTON - Conventional wisdom holds that nonleague football games don't matter.

But they do matter when an official penalizes a key starter so he has to sit out the next game, and that next game is a league game.

That's what happened to starting Bulldogs running back/wide receiver Hayden Fullerton during Thursday's game against the Weston- McEwen Tigerscots.

In a highly controversial ruling that first went in favor of the Bulldogs, only to be reversed to go against the Dayton team after the head official talked to the Weston- McEwen coach, Fullerton was ejected for supposed "blatant unsportsmanlike conduct."

Despite protest from the Bulldogs and Dayton High School Athletics Director Jack Smiley, Dayton sports officials learned earlier this week the reversed ruling will not be reversed in the other direction and Fullerton has to sit out his team's first league game against Tri Cities Prep at home on Sept. 30.

Add to that, running back Lowden Smith's recent injury (he broke his arm in the game against Enterprise) and Kroft Sunderland's ankle injury sustained during the game against Weston-McEwen, and the team's veteran ranks will be thin on Sept. 30.

On the positive side of the injury ledger, Wyatt Frame and Joey Schlachter should be healthy again by then, as might Sunderland. Either way, Dayton didn't need an ejection and, local observers said, didn't deserve it.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Smiley, a veteran

AD who has coached and supervised sports program for decades. "We have to bite the bullet, accept the call and move on."

The Bulldogs lost 43-0 in a rout that was as remarkable for its penalties (10 on the Tigerscots and 11 on the Bulldogs) and sloppy officiating as it was for the size of the Tigerscots' victory.

Even Dale Gerke, the head linesman who reversed his ejection ruling, admitted he wasn't having the best night of his career.

The call that caused all the head scratching on the sideline came with just more than two minutes to go in the second half. Tigerscots quarterback Dallas Reich dropped back into the pocket and released a pass to Elliot Salter just before Fullerton took him down.

Gerke, who was closest to the play in the back field, told the Times during halftime that Fullerton made a late hit on Reich, then "drove him into the ground" in an act of "blatant unsportsmanlike conduct."

The head linesman claimed he got the players' numbers mixed up when he made the initial call to eject Reich, but Gerke reportedly made that call without huddling with the rest of his officiating crew and didn't reverse his weighty ejection decision until after Tigerscots' coach Kenzie Hansell called him over to the sideline to question the call.

Fullerton denies making an intentional late hit and roughing the passer, saying he didn't know Reich had already released the ball. He accused Reich of throwing him a punch in his back as he brought the quarterback down, but Gerke said he saw nothing of the sort.

"I didn't know he had already thrown the ball," Fullerton said. " I didn't drive him into the ground. He punched me right as I brought him down."

Smiley said he was on the phone for several hours on Friday to explain the situation to Gerke's superiors and allow Fullerton to play against Tri Cities Prep, particularly because a new District 9 rule might give them that flexibility.

The new rule calls for the removal of a player for the remainder of a game if he accumulates two penalties. Smiley said Fullerton was penalized earlier for another offense before he was accused of the dead ball personal contact foul.

The athletic director said the player should have been benched instead of ejected, a more serious sanction that forces him to sit out the next game. The Bulldogs have a bye this week.

Unfortunately, video foot- age customarily shot during the game followed the long pass action that led to a touchdown play instead of the tussle in the back field to which Gerke said he was a witness.

Under general high school football rules, the head linesman's "judgment" call cannot be reversed, particularly since the ejection was already reported to the Washington Interscholatic Athletics Association. The new District 9 accumulative benching rule should have been made on the field, but Gerke may not have been familiar with it or may have opted for the heavier ejection penalty regardless, Smiley said.

It's unlikely another ruling would have affected the outcome of the non-league game.

The Tigerscots dominated the field from the beginning, when they executed a planned onsite kick instead of a regular kickoff and gained immediate possession of the ball before converting a march down the field into a touchdown with a 2-point attempt for an 8-0 lead barely two minutes into the first quarter.

After that, the Bulldogs tried to come up with answers to each of the Tigerscots' six touchdowns but failed to pierce through Weston-McEwen's formidable defense with both coaches putting in their benches to duke it out in the third quarter.