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The boys’ lacrosse team at Ipswich High School had the chance to punch its ticket to a state championship game in Massachusetts on Tuesday. Unfortunately, the team was forced to forfeit its semifinal showdown after some seniors snapped a pick of themselves holding fake cigars after graduating.
Graduation Season is currently in full force at high schools across the country, and on Sunday, 113 students at Ipswich High School on Massachusetts’s North Shore crossed the stage to receive their diplomas. That includes some members of the boys’ lacrosse team who had unfinished business, as the squad was slated to face off against Cohasset in a Division 4 playoff semifinal on Tuesday night.
However, things took an unexpected turn when the school announced the contest would not be played shortly before it was slated to get underway while posting the following statement on its website.
Ipswich High School
No concrete explanation was initially offered, but that changed after reports began to surface linking the cancellation to cigars that didn’t actually have any tobacco in them.
The boys’ lacrosse team at Ipswich High School forfeited a playoff game over fake cigars
According to CBS News, some members of the Tigers lacrosse team who graduated on Sunday decided to cap off the ceremony by posing for a picture where they appeared to be holding cigars.
That photo ended up coming to the attention of the school’s principal before the superintendent got involved, and the administration ended up banning the offending players from partaking in the playoff showdown before deciding to call it off entirely (which appeared to be a fairly last-minute decision when you consider the rest of the team was informed they were forfeiting after getting on the bus that was supposed to take them to it).
That rationale stemmed from a Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association rule that prohibits the use of tobacco, but according to a parent of one of the players, the ones they posed with were makeshift ones filled with dried tea and paper that they whipped up after consulting a smoke shop for tips on how to make a convincing fake.
The players even provided the principal with one of the fake cigars to prove they weren’t real, but it apparently wasn’t enough to sway the powers that be.
Ipswich (which was the fourth-seeded team in the MIAA D4 tournament after going 11-4 during the regular season) was hoping to secure a state championship for the first time since 2017, but Cohasset was credited with a 7-0 victory and will face off against Nantucket for the title this weekend.