2 await WPIAL hearing results
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GREEN TREE – Patrick Frey and Toni Spossey had their eligibility hearings before the WPIAL Board of Control at the league office yesterday afternoon, and both decisions, reached early Monday evening, will be announced by 8 a.m. today.
Frey, a football and baseball player, transferred from Trinity to McGuffey and started at his new school Feb. 27. Spossey, who was the Trinity softball team’s starting pitcher last spring, enrolled at Chartiers-Houston Jan. 22.
The hearings were necessary because Trinity disputed both transfers, presumably because of what’s routinely referred to as “athletic intent.”
After introductions, both hearings were ultimately closed to the media, per requests made by the student-athletes’ parents and legal counsel.
Afterward, Toni’s Spossey’s father, Wray, declined comment. So, too, did Craig M. Lee, a lawyer hired to represent Patrick Frey. Trinity principal Don Snoke would not discuss either case.
“The process requires that for the transfer to be approved, both principals have to give indication that there was no athletic purpose,” WPIAL executive director Tim O’Malley said. “In each case (yesterday), that didn’t exist.
“The process requires that the board hears what’s testified to them, then they collectively render that decision. They did that (Monday). The decision is rendered, and the outcome will be communicated (Tuesday morning).”
When contacted in late February regarding his son’s transfer, Patrick Frey Sr. insisted the move was made to enroll his son in McGuffey’s vocational agriculture program.
“He is transferring … for agriculture and turf management,” Patrick Frey Sr. said at the time.
Snoke declined comment following news of Frey’s transfer, while superintendent Paul Kasunich declined comment when the hearings were set March 7.
Frey (5-10, 195) rushed for 940 yards and 10 touchdowns as a junior. The Observer-Reporter Elite 11 selection led Trinity to a 5-5 record, 5-3 in the Class AAA Big Nine Conference. The Hillers lost to Montour, 27-6, in the first round of the WPIAL Class AAA playoffs.
Should the WPIAL Board of Control rule one or both players ineligible, it’s not uncommon for those cases to then be appealed to the PIAA.