You know you’ve had some hard luck when you go 5-1 in a tournament and still finish in ninth place.
That’s what happened to the Argyle senior girls at the provincial AAA field hockey championships, where the Pipers were left disappointed by a tie-breaking formula mix-up that left them out of the championship bracket.
The Pipers were one of three teams to finish with identical 2-1 records in their opening round pool, with Kelowna and McMath joining them in a three-way standoff. Only two teams, however, could go to the championship bracket, with the third-place team joining the fourth-place team on the consolation side.
The first tie-breaker was goal differential, and Kelowna was tops in that regard, earning top spot in the pool. Tournament organizers then used the head-to-head showing between the two remaining teams to determine second place, and since McMath beat Argyle in pool play, the host school was placed into the championship bracket and the Pipers were dropped to the consolation side.
“The team with the best goal difference went through. Two teams were left, and McMath beat Argyle so they went through,” provincial field hockey commissioner Alanna Martin explained in a note to the North Shore News.
An hour before they were set to start their playoff game, however, Argyle coaches say they were informed that the rules for BC School Sports field hockey tournaments had been misinterpreted, and if followed correctly Argyle should have placed second based on their superior goal differential in games played amongst the three tied teams. With the clock ticking down on the start times for playoff games at different fields, the Argyle players were left waiting in their cars as their coaches pleaded their case to tournament organizers.
“We did everything we could to try and get top eight, because that was our goal,” said head coach Jane Kozniak. “I just know that as the rules are written for BC School Sports, we should have been placed in second and McMath in third.”
Ultimately, however, the Pipers decided that they weren’t going to be able to get the ruling overturned before the playoff games were slated to start, and so they suited up for their first game on the consolation side of the draw.
“It’s a little disappointing,” said Kozniuk, a longtime elite coach on the North Shore. “You need a specific amount of time to warm up, and when I did not feel that we would be able to change the decision that the technical director and executive members had made, I acted in the best interest of my team.”
The Pipers played out their games and ended up winning the consolation trophy, earning ninth place while putting together one of the best records in the tournament. They finished the event with five wins and one loss, including a victory over Kelowna, who went all the way to the final where they lost in a shootout against Handsworth.
“To have actually beaten the second place team, we knew that we could have been contenders,” said Kozniak. The coach added that she was ready to move on from the incident and only hoped to prevent something similar from happening in the future.
“Stuff happens, right,” she said. “I would like to support BC School Sports and make sure that the next event for field hockey is done correctly. But I don’t want to put field hockey in a bad light. … Our kids played well. Everyone had lots of playing time and we came home with a trophy.”
