When a referee's clerical error gave a suspension to a backup rather than one of the team's star players just days before the most important game of the year, the coaching staff of St. Thomas More's senior boys soccer team had a choice.

They could let someone know a mistake had been made. Or they could take advantage of the situation and seize the loophole.

Sadly, they chose door No. 2.

It was late in stoppage time during the Catholic championship on May 19. More was leading Bishop Tonnos when in the midst of some pushing and shoving by a number of players, a fight broke out between the two goalies. Both were shown red cards on the field and sent off by the referee.

After the game, linesmen Zach Muraca and Steve Kalotinis both say, an assistant coach from More approached head referee Milan Lasica — who was standing with them — and asked him to change his ruling.

"The gist of the conversation was, instead of giving both goalies red cards, can you write it down as yellow cards?" Muraca says. "The ref said, 'Not a chance.'"

This is key because a red card in any level of soccer comes with an automatic suspension for the next game which would be the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference, the last step before the provincial OFSAA championships. And Eric Griffin is a star fifth-year keeper.

However, More had two goalies marked simply as GK on the game sheet. No numbers. When Lasica wrote the name of the expelled player, he somehow wrote the name of the backup goalie who hadn't played one second of the game and was on the sideline while the skirmish was underway.

So when More stepped on the field to face Oakville's Holy Trinity Titans a week later with a berth in the Ontario championships on the line, the red-carded Griffin was back in net while the innocent backup served his accidental suspension. They won. Then a week later, they finished second at OFSAA.

"Our silver was the best in St. Thomas More history," head coach Sandra Moretuzzo — a teacher at the school and an experienced coach who's worked at the college level — said on the school's website.

She declined to comment for this story and referred questions to the school board. Athletics convener Joanne Condello also referred all Spectator questions to the board's superintendent of education and secondary athletics Morris Hucal. He didn't respond to several requests for comment.

So what comes of all this? Probably nothing.

Because of the ref's mistake, putting the red-carded goalie in net technically wasn't wrong since it wasn't his name on the game sheet. The player who was written up was in fact sitting out as required. Thus, nobody broke any rules.

But in every other conceivable way, this reeks. High school athletics are supposed to be different from professional sports. They're supposed to be about winning if possible, but doing so in a manner that teaches young people respect and sportsmanship and responsibility. About making better people. About, as the board's policies say, being an extension of the classroom.

Is that naive and unlikely? Maybe. But the board doesn't think so.

"Catholic coaches have a responsibility to … seek ways to reduce potential negative aspects of sport e.g. winning at all costs, playing to the letter (rather than the spirit) of the rules and unfairly exploiting competitors' weaknesses," says the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic Athletic Association's constitution.

Everyone involved should be embarrassed by this. Further, Holy Trinity and possibly the other schools More defeated en route to the OFSAA medal should feel aggrieved. They surely expected better from their opponent.

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"(Our) mission statement is education through school sport," OFSAA assistant director Shamus Bourdon says. "That philosophy of life lessons and integrity and character … we would hope teacher-coaches across the province would mimic that."

The Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board coaches' guidelines demand that and more. They set lofty standards. Yet when a real-life test of those aims was presented, the result was woefully lacking.

This is just not what school sports are supposed to be.