Actions at game being looked at by sherriff's office

Burke County law enforcement opens investigation on Chase-Freedom football incident

By: Paul Schenkel | Media General News Service
Published: October 26, 2011

The Burke County Sheriff’s office is taking a look at last Friday’s Chase at Freedom high school football game.

In an email to The Morganton News Herald received about 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Burke County Sherriff Steve Whisenant said local law enforcement has “assigned a detective to review the videos available to determine any assaults that took place and if any persons can be identified.”

Whisenant also said the Chase head coach Daniel Bailey is cooperating with the “ongoing investigation” and that deputies would pursue charges if any assault was classified as a felony.

An altercation broke out in the third quarter of Freedom’s 55-13 win and seven players were ejected, five Patriots and two Trojans.

Two Freedom players were ejected for fighting and the other three for running onto the field during a fight, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) said on Tuesday, when it told Freedom it would not be eligible for the state playoffs.

The NCHSAA’s ejection rule says if a school has three or more players ejected from a game – of six ejections for any reason during a season – it forfeits its playoff privileges.

The play came in the third quarter, after Chase punted, and the altercation was on the Chase sideline.

NCHSAA working on finalizing enrollments

State football playoff brackets are scheduled to be released on Saturday afternoon, and games begin on Nov. 4.

As of Tuesday, NCHSAA associate commissioner Rick Strunk said the State Department of Public Instruction had received about 80 percent of the average daily membership (ADM) figures for state schools.

The ADM figures are used to separate the qualifying teams into “A” and “AA” brackets in each of four classes.

In an e-mail, Strunk said a snafu with the DPI computers that developed last Wednesday appears solved.

In order to subdivide the playoffs, the NCHSAA will likely make calls to schools that have not reported their ADMs.

Strunk said in the email that, at this time, the NCHSAA is not considering steps such as using last year’s ADMs to seed the 2011 playoffs.

Record Sports Editor Chris Hobbs contributed to this article.