The scorekeepers stationed at Mat 7 held their arms up and yelled at the officials to wait, but the action resumed, the clock stood still and chaos ensued Thursday night, creating one of the most dubious endings in NCAA wrestling history. 

Campbell’s Josh Heil narrowly fought off an attack by Oklahoma State’s Boo Lewallen in the second tiebreaker session and stood seven seconds from upsetting the No. 4 seed at 149 pounds after a failed challenge by the Cowboy corner. 

That’s when the timekeeping turmoil began inside the Enterprise Center and a series of missteps started. 

Unprepared for the wrestling to resume, the scoreboard operators unsuccessfully yelled at the officials to wait before continuing the bout. It’s worth noting that the scorekeepers are stationed in the stands this week rather than matside due to COVID-19 safety precautions, which made it more difficult for them to stop the officials from resuming the match. 

Heil began to backpedal when the action continued, Lewallen chased for roughly six seconds, but the clock remained stuck at :07 in the second-round bout.  

“We didn’t have the clock up. You’ve got to look at me,” one scorekeeper said to the lead official on video from a matside camera. “We were not ready. We had a hand up and you started.

“Seven seconds ran off. Do you want to run it off or not?”

The official responded: “We’ve got to run it off.”

Instead of ending the match there, however, the officials conferred and elected to wrestle seven more seconds. They denied a challenge attempt by Campbell coach Scotti Sentes, and a similar sequence played out after the restart, except this time Lewallen got to Heil’s legs and finished to secure a 7-6 victory. 

“Everything was settled on the mat,” Sentes said. “And it was changed by what happened off the mat.”

Sentes filed a formal appeal after the bout but said via text message Friday morning that his protest was denied. 

“I’m disappointed, I just hope they get it right in the end,” Sentes said Thursday night. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. One hundred percent people have (timed) the running clock of when the whistle was blown and the action began and it was about seven seconds.” 

NCAA wrestling national coordinator of officials Tim Shiels offered an explanation on ESPN’s broadcast of the tournament. Shiels said “there’s no way to know exactly” how much time should’ve expired and “to try and guess or try and reset it or to even go to video review and not see anything has run off, you don’t have anything to go by. So at that point it’s like, ‘No, no, no, we’re gonna have to start at that point we last left off. ‘ And that’s what happened.” 

Asked why the officials didn’t look at the video and calculate the time, Shiels said: “Because it’s guesswork. You don’t have anything concrete because the clock hasn’t moved at all, and they’re trying to stop it and be as fair to both wrestlers as possible.

Rule 3, Section 13, Article 6 of the NCAA rulebook states that: “Integrated timing and scoring and/or a view of the official score clock on the official video system are the only allowable timing or scoring devices to be used for video review.”

Oklahoma State coach John Smith, who guided Heil’s older brother, Dean, to two NCAA titles with the Cowboys, said he felt Lewallen should’ve been awarded with the disputed takedown that preceded the timing issues. 

“I don’t know why they didn’t award two before the end of that match where he did pick up a takedown,” Smith said. “He had a takedown before that. Sometimes you wonder some of the situations that you get in — especially on takedowns — why some officials are calling two and some aren’t. I’m not criticizing anyone, I’m just saying it’s frustrating in those big matches. I don’t think Boo planned to be in that tough of a match, but you have to get those points when you earn them. It was good that he followed through with a takedown at the end.”