The Ashland High School swimming and diving teams will forfeit every competition they’ve competed in so far this season due to an administrative error.
The Ashland Clockers are located in Ashland, Mass., and compete in the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA).
The boys’ and girls’ swim and dive teams have had three eighth-graders compete for them this winter, and those athletes were declared ineligible because the proper waiver for them to participate at the high school level was not filled out at the time, according to the MetroWest Daily News.
Ashland athletic director Kevin Anderson sent an email to the team informing them of the news. The email was obtained by the MetroWest Daily News.
“I want to be clear that this is not the fault of the student-athletes or their families,” Anderson wrote in the email. “The responsibility for this error lies entirely with me as your athletic director.
“I take the responsibility of this role extremely seriously, and the fact that I let this happen is something I deeply regret.”
The Ashland swim and dive teams are coming off competing at the 2025 Tri-Valley Champs in Wellesley, where the girls’ team finished as the runners-up and the boys’ finished 7th out of nine teams.
The three eighth-graders won’t be eligible to compete the rest of the season.
“Our student-athletes and families put an incredible amount of time, energy, and heart into this program, and I am devastated that my mistake has impacted their season in this way,” Anderson wrote in the email.
The rest of the team will be able to finish out the year, and their qualifying times for the MIAA Winter South Sectional Championships (Feb. 9) and the MIAA Division II State Championships (Feb. 15) remain valid, according to the Metro West Daily News.
“Please know that I am actively working to ensure a mistake like this will never happen again,” Anderson wrote in the email. “I will be implementing additional checks and procedures to ensure that all eligibility requirements are completed and verified in a timely manner moving forward.”
The Ashland girls’ team is forfeiting five wins they’ve picked up this season, most recently on Wednesday against Hopkinton High School, while the boys’ team earned their lone win in the season-opener on Dec. 13 against Medfield Senior High.
Last season, Ashland sent three swimmers to the MIAA Division II Championships: Molly Connors, Sophia Warnetski and Nathan Gelfand. Connors and Warnetski are both competing for the team again this season.
What kind of craziness is this?! Its a High school team, why would it even be an option for 8th graders to compete? You only get 4 years?! I am blown away there even is a process to allow this absurdity! What kid wants to say I am a five year champion in High school. Knowing High school is 4 years. Also college scouts might find rhis odd. I never heard of such nonsense. In California that is not even possible.
Not all high schools are 4 years. My swimmers’ high school was 8-12 with 3500 students. Other high schools in the area then petitioned to allow 8th graders compete just to field teams. Not ideal, but it was allowed, with waivers.
One of the few sports where people would actually have to fight to have an 8th grader on varsity.
Always great to see the MIAA prioritize paperwork over the athletes. They’ve certainly mastered that skill—too bad they can’t seem to explain their own rules.
Other schools have properly filled out the waivers. Why should Ashland be different? I don’t think there’s a state with more waivers then Massachusetts. Jump through all kinds of hoops with all of the restrictions placed on swimmers and coaches there.
I never said Ashland should be exempt from the rules, but mistakes happen, and unfortunately, it’s the athletes who suffer when the MIAA refuses to show any flexibility and clings to its regulations. Especially in swimming, the MIAA has fostered a culture where students and parents are quick to report others, creating an environment of suspicion rather than support. These rigid rules force young swimmers to choose between high school and club swimming, which only hurts the sport in the long run. The MIAA’s new slogan might as well be: Making NE swimming slower one athlete at a time.
TBH, that was as good as a mea culpa as one could ask for. I hope they all move forward together and my best to the team.