In a statement provided to AL.com on Tuesday, Coosa Christian School explained its side of an AHSAA investigation into its football program earlier this fall and expressed its desire to comply with the AHSAA moving forward.

It was announced on Sept. 29 by the AHSAA that Coosa Christian – a Class 1A semifinalist a year ago – would forfeit all four of its victories up to that point for a violation of the transfer rule. The AHSAA said then the school also would be fined for playing “some” ineligible players. The school appealed the ruling to the Central Board of Control earlier this month, but the appeal was denied.

Coosa’s statement today described what it believed were the facts of the case:

“Coosa Christian hired full-time athletic directors during the summer to better accommodate the growing needs of the athletic program and to run the day-to-day operations of the program. The newly hired employees have children who play athletics. The AHSAA handbook states that children of full-time employees (teachers, administrators, counselors and athletic directors) can move to the school of their parents and immediately be eligible for sports, so these students were allowed to participate during football season. Five games into the season, these students were found to be ineligible because the AHSAA ruled that the employees were not full time, therefor forfeiting the games these students played in. We have followed the appeals process fully and complied with the AHSAA’s decision. Moving forward, it is our continued desire to support our Conquerors and to comply with the AHSAA.”

Coosa (4-5) has won all three Class 1A, Region 7 games following the forfeits by a combined score of 196-7 and qualified for the playoffs. The Conquerors play at Victory Christian on Friday in the regular-season finale and then open the playoffs as the No. 3 seed at Spring Garden.

In their first game back following the forfeit news, Coosa beat Cedar Bluff 94-7. Coosa Christian coach Mark O’Bryant acknowledged after the game he ran up the score and told The Gadsden Times it was in response to Cherokee County Schools Superintendent Mike Welsh attempting to “sabotage” the Coosa Christian program.

The scores of each of the last two wins (vs. Appalachian and Woodville) were both 51-0.

“We know athletic events are competitive and can easily become heated, but our goal is to let the light of Christ shine through us,” the statement said. “We have the finest young people that attend and compete for Coosa Christian. We believe our Lord deserves our best and are humbly asking for forgiveness from anyone we have offended as we were dealing with these appeals. Going forward, we will not be perfect and, undoubtedly, we will stumble from time to time, but our ultimate goal is to be good representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ.”