How a rare approved WIAA game protest saved Bellarmine Prep's chance at a boys basketball championship

Last Saturday, Lions had to win replayed final three minutes of game in afternoon — they beat Gig Harbor in home nightcap to stay tied in 3A PSL

After winning a WIAA protest, Bellarmine Prep boys moved into tie with Lincoln atop the 3A PSL boys basketball standings. / Photo by Todd Milles

TACOMA, Wash. — When first-year high school boys basketball coach Bobby Moorehead retraces the benchmark moments of what many expect to be a long and successful career, he might skip over what took place Jan. 25.

Moorehead knew it was going to be a long, stress-filled day with the Bellarmine Prep program. On top of that, he had been ill all week and was still feeling crummy.

But what took place — a pair of victories over 3A PSL rival Gig Harbor, one on the road and the other in the home gymnasium — will likely never happen again.

By way of an approved WIAA game protest — a process many consider as worthless as ice cubes on a freezing day — the Lions replayed the final 3:23 of a game that originally went down as a Tides home victory, 56-54.

The game resumed that Saturday afternoon tied 45-45 in Gig Harbor — and Bellarmine Prep went on to win, 50-47.

Hours later, the two teams met in a second game in Tacoma, 63-50, to move the Lions into a share of the league lead with Lincoln of Tacoma.

The turnaround left many around the Tides' team seething — so much that Bellarmine Prep athletic director Kevin Meines became a target of that frustration with parents and a couple of Gig Harbor administrators.

"Why are we the villains in this?" Meines said. "We were following a process."

The sequence under review came late in the fourth quarter of the game played Dec. 19:

Birk Johnston was whistled for a personal foul — and then immediately tagged for a technical foul that pushed the Lions' total foul count to the bonus (five).

But when the officiating crew awarded Gig Harbor four free throws instead of two for the technical foul, Moorehead immediately knew the rule — and tried to fix the oversight.

When It became apparent the issue would not be resolved, Moorehead declared verbally the rest of the game was going to be played under protest, even though the referees never reported it to the scorer's table.

Meines — also the girls coach — was in the gymnasium at the time, and raced down to midcourt to ask that the protest be noted in the home scorebook before the next live ball happened.

It was written: "Bellarmine protests fourth quarter."

After the Bellarmine Prep loss that night, Meines phoned local WOA basketball assigner Larry Stevens about the steps of filing a protest. Stevens recommended that Meines call WIAA assistant executive director Andy Barnes for counsel.

Meines was in a new situation. He had never filed a protest before. He was aware of how the process largely played out, which rarely meant replaying a portion of a game.

Barnes told Meines to log the argument behind the protest and file it with 3A PSL president Steve Taylor, the Capital athletic director; Joe Keller, the director of District 3/4 (West Central District); and to the WIAA, which Meines did Dec. 20.

Because of the timing being so close to the winter holidays, the protest sat for weeks — until league athletic director convened for their monthly meeting in January.

With Meines and Peninsula School District athletic director Wendy Malich out of the room, the other athletic directors voted on their findings — and ruled the final 3:23 would be replayed.

"I was pretty confident we'd win the appeal," Moorehead said. "I did not know how the system worked and if we would replay it, or if they would say, 'We were right but we cannot replay it.'

"I held out hope we would because it was such an egregious mistake."

Because most game protests are handled at the league and district level, the WIAA does not keep record of successful appeals. But Barnes estimated what happened for Bellarmine Prep happens four or five times a year across the board for all sports.

The two schools agreed to finish up the protested game Jan. 25 at 1 p.m. before their scheduled second game at Bellarmine Prep at 7 p.m.

Because so much time had elapsed from the mid-December game to the ruling, Gig Harbor thought it had an avenue to appeal the decision, which was not granted.

"We are mad at the process," Malich said. "It's been very frustrating."

So, last Saturday, Bellarmine Prep met at the school at 11 a.m. and traveled to Gig Harbor to finish the first game.

Both teams went through 20-minute warmups, then tipped off.

"It was really weird," Lions guard Kyson Regan said. "We played for three minutes and barely broke a sweat."

J.J. Bordeaux's tiebreaking 3-pointer in the final seconds lifted the Lions to victory.

"With that kind of game, it is way more important to value the ball," Regan said. "We had to buckle down on defense and make sure they didn’t get anything."

Meines said the visiting reception was so on edge, he called in extra security and administrators for crowd control in the later game, which the Lions won handily.

"I will probably never see this again in my coaching career," Moorehead said.

---