A clerical error for a Massachusetts high school football program has led to the team missing out on the postseason despite ending the year with a winning record.
Boston English/New Mission (MA) scheduled a game with O'Bryant (MA) to close out the 2026 regular season. However, that game was not marked as an official game on Boston English's schedule, according to a report from the Boston Globe.
The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association now uses a system, Arbiter Live, to track team schedules and all games must be added to the platform before the Sept. 18 deadline. A week prior, another member school alerted the MIAA about a discrepancy on Boston English's schedule.
The game against O'Bryant was not added in by the Sept. 18 deadline,
and while the Bulldogs won 12-6, it was counted as a scrimmage instead of an official game. The players and coaches went from winning the program's first Boston City League title since 2021 to finding out the next day that they would missing the postseason.
As the contest was counted as a scrimmage, the Bulldogs fell to 4-2 on the year and fell one game short of the state's seven-game minimum for qualifying for the state tournament. Had the game been counted as a forfeit instead, English would have fallen down a few spots seeding-wise, but the Bulldogs would have still qualified for the postseason.
Instead, MIAA Handbook Rule 34.6 stated that the game could not be counted at all.
“These are kids that went 0-10 [in 2023] and they’re now seniors . . . and they never quit,” English head coach Ryan Conway told the Boston Globe. “They stuck through it, they developed, and they committed themselves to the game, and now they’re being taken out because of a technicality.
"It’s breaking my heart to tell them that they can’t compete in the tournament because of somebody’s mishap. They worked too hard to have it taken from them.”
The Bulldogs were projected to enter the Division 8 playoffs as the No. 10 seed.
While they did not qualify for the playoffs, English's season is not over. The Bulldogs will play Pentucket (MA) on Nov. 6 in a non-playoff game and then they play later in the month on Thanksgiving morning against Boston Latin (MA) at Harvard.
Follow Sports Reporter Joe Spears on X at @joe_spears7 or via email: JSpears@usatodayco.com. For additional high school sports coverage, be sure to follow USA TODAY High School Sports on Instagram and X.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Boston-area high school football team misses playoffs after clerical error
