---

MANSFIELD - The Mansfield High School football team has been forced to forfeit tonight's scheduled MIAA Division 2 playoff game against Bishop Feehan High after officials learned that Mansfield had used an ineligible player through the course of the 2008 season.

The 11th-hour decision was made by the MIAA Football Committee and administrators at Mansfield High. The game against Feehan had been scheduled for 5:15 p.m. at Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School.

According to school sources, Mansfield High School today will seek a court order to allow the team to play this evening.

The MIAA decision to forfeit was made after the Hornets concluded their two-hour practice session at Alumni Field early Monday evening and was not immediately made known to members of the Mansfield team.

Mansfield Coach Mike Redding declined to name the player. "The Mansfield High School football program had a player participate in two games. Each game was about three plays at the very end of the game," Redding said. "The player in question, without the knowledge of the coaching staff or the athletic department, had entered his fifth year of high school. When the coaching staff became aware of the student's fifth year, which was around the Thanksgiving Day holiday, on the next school day, Dec. 1, they self-reported it to the athletic director, who reported it to the MIAA in hopes that we would have a meeting or conference to sort out the facts.

"At this point, Mansfield has had no opportunity to sit down with all of the parties involved, to put together an official report and find out if an actual violation has taken place."

Efforts by The Sun Chronicle to reach first-year Athletic Director Patrick Burns were unsuccessful.

The player in question had transferred into the Mansfield school system at the outset of the academic year. However, his transcript and the paperwork for eligibility to be cleared for a waiver was never processed by Mansfield High School.

Notice of the ineligible player surfaced prior to the Thanksgiving football game in which Mansfield beat Foxboro. Subsequently, Burns contacted the MIAA for a clarification and received word of the forfeiture late Monday.

"I thought that I had heard it all - until now," said Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High football coach Dave Driscoll, the 2006 President of the Mass. Football Coaches Association. "I've never heard of such a situation - and why did someone just find out a day before the game?"

Also unconfirmed was a court order to be sought by Mansfield High School to appeal the MIAA's decision to have the Hornets forfeit the game.

"There was no preparation time, no chance to scout or get film," Paul Wetzel of the MIAA said when reached at home. "We felt the safety issue was (also) very important.

"It's not the player's fault," Wetzel said. "It's the school administration's. The punishment is what it is."

By the MIAA decisions, North Attleboro is declared the Hockomock League champion with a 7-1 league record. "I don't know the details, but we don't enjoy it," said Bishop Feehan High School President Chris Servant, who with Principal Bill Runey and Athletic Director Paul O'Boy, received word of the forfeiture just before 7 p.m. Monday.

The forfeiture sends the defending MIAA Division 2 Super Bowl champion Shamrocks (9-1) into Saturday's title game at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro against the winner of the other MIAA Division 2 playoff game between Walpole and Reading.

"We certainly don't feel good about this, but what's strange is this final hour decision," Servant said. "Did somebody blow the whistle on this?"

Because Mansfield was ruled ineligible to represent the Hockomock League and compete in the Division 2 playoff game, there loomed the possibility that the runner-up Rocketeers of North Attleboro would instead represent the league and have a rematch game with Bishop Feehan.

However, the opportunity never presented itself according to North coach Kurt Kummer.

"We could have played, we would have played, but the MIAA said that we can't - they had made their decision," Kummer said. "The MIAA had made the decision that Bishop Feehan would get a bye to the Super Bowl."

It was North's contention that because they had finished second to Mansfield during the course of the Hockomock League season, they would ably represent the league.

"Nobody was purposely cheating to gain an advantage," Kummer said. "But, how do you now tell the kids on the Mansfield High football team, hours before the game, that they can't compete for a championship. And if not them, why not us?"

Administrators, according to Servant, found it difficult to discern that an ineligible player - for whatever reason, living out of town, age or academics - would not have been discovered earlier in the season, less than a day before a Final Four playoff game.

"If he was ineligible for game No. 1, would he not be ineligible for games 2, 3 and 4?" Servant asked. "It doesn't make sense."