Error sinks Bay Area high school swimmers' state championship hopes, athletes plead for exemption

ByRyan Curry KGO logo

Thursday, May 2, 2024

Error sinks Bay Area high school swimmers' state championship hopes

Thirteen swimmers from Acalanes High School are urging the North Coast Section administrators to let them compete in the championship swim meet.

LAFAYETTE, Calif. (KGO) -- Thirteen swimmers from Acalanes High School are urging the North Coast Section administrators to let them compete in this weekend's championship swim meet. They are currently ineligible because their coach encountered an issue while submitting.

"Essentially the vast majority of my entries were undone," said Brett Usinger, Acalanes Head Swim Coach. "It was all incomplete, and it was past the deadline so I no longer had the ability to make any changes."

The system the NCS uses to submit entries is called Club Assistant. Usinger says that the system doesn't allow him to tell when his submissions are in. NCS has a strict deadline for submissions of 1:15 p.m. on Sunday, April, 28.

"There is no email confirmation or submit button that goes out," Usinger said. "I don't email entries to any particular person. You can imagine it looking like a Google sheet or excel."

He tried to get help with the meet directors or the NCS, but no one got back to him. NCS officials say Usinger missed his deadline.

"Acalanes High School did not submit their NCS swim team entries for this weekend's championships before the mandatory deadline of April 28, 2024, at 1:15 p.m.," said Pat Cruickshank, the NCS Commissioner, in a statement to ABC 7. "This occurred after a reminder was sent out to all NCS member schools by the Section office that the deadline was mandatory and no exceptions for late entries would be made."

The swimmers are hoping the NCS can make an exception.

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"We have all been working for this for a really long time," said Senior swimmer Brooklyn Plomp. "Having our first year stripped away from COVID and now this being taken from us as well is devastating."

Some of them have prospects to swim in college or compete at the state championships next week.

"Some of our relays I thought we had a shot at qualifying for state," said Senior swimmer Parker Etnyre. "I myself thought I could have qualified for state so it is just too bad since we don't have the opportunity anymore."

The swimmers are not blaming their coach. They fully support him and put the blame on the NCS for not helping.

"There needs to be a new system," said Senior swimmer Olivia Hoppe. "The way this is getting handled just feels very unfair and it is hard to deal with it."