MILTON, Wis. – The Milton High School Boy’s Golf team will get another chance at a trip to state, after a computer tallying error by the WIAA nearly cost them the opportunity.
Milton will face Mukwanago in a one-hole playoff Thursday morning at Riverside Golf Course in Janesville.
During Milton’s sectional contest Tuesday, results on the WIAA website showed the team coming four strokes behind Mukwanago. Shortly after, however, Mukwanago coach Jay Christiansen said a player and assistant noticed an miscalculated score.
Milton coach Kirk Weiland says that’s when he got a call.
“Mukwanago did nothing but the honorable thing,” Weiland said. “They noticed it, they called us and said ‘We have a problem- we shot 324, not 320 as posted, we should have a playoff’.”
WIAA Golf Director Tom Shafranski said it’s likely a miscalculation made through the software used to track scores.
“We put on a lot of tournaments, a lot of golf tournaments that go on, regionals, and sectionals,” Shafranksi said. “We have lots of different schools with lots of different courses and people involved in doing that. Every now and then, we do run into a little bit of a glitch.”
Weiland said both he and Christiansen appealed to Shafranski to ask for a playoff. After originally being told the scores could not be changed, the two coaches got their request.
“Sometimes we rely on computers when sometimes we shouldn’t,” Weiland said. “In this scenario, we have no reason to believe it would have added it up correctly, and none of us caught, because we’re just looking at the scores that were produced.”
Christiansen said in a phone call Wednesday his team wouldn’t have wanted to qualify for state because of a miscalculation.
“I feel excited. Win or lose, it’s just fair to the kids,” Weiland said. “That’s what we tell our kids all the time – do the right thing. The only right thing to do here would be to give Milton and Mukwanago a playoff because we tied with them yesterday.”
The playoff will happen at 8:45 a.m. Thursday. If Milton wins, it will make its first state appearance since 1987, according to Weiland.
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