Update: Football Hawks await CIS decision

The Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks men’s football team will have to wait a little longer to find out if their week three win over the University of Toronto will be nullified.

A Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) committee is still deliberating the eligibility of fifth-year defensive end Dave Montoya. Montoya’s eligibility came into question earlier this week due to the fact that there was a five-year gap between the last time the Burlington native played for the Hawks (2005) and his return this season.

Over the summer, a new stipulation to the CIS football eligibility rules came into effect, declaring that a player must use his five years within seven years of graduating from high school. However, this rule was only to be applied to students starting their first-year of CIS football this year.

Yesterday, Laurier’s director of athletics and recreation Peter Baxter told The Cord’s Tieja MacLaughlin that Montoya has been enrolled at WLU since January and the interpretation was that he was eligible under the old rules.

Montoya made an appeal to the CIS and a decision should be reached tomorrow.

“It’s something that’s hanging there, but we can’t focus on it,” said Hawks’ manager of football operations and head coach Gary Jeffries during Thursday’s Ontario University Athletics (OUA) coaches’ teleconference.

“We’ve just been trying to put it out of our minds… Our kids know that all they have to do is go out there and practice and get on with it.”

Montoya didn’t dress in the Hawks 68-14 win over the York Lions last week, making that game safe from becoming a potential forfeit.

This weekend, the Hawks will take on the Guelph Gryphons as part of Laurier’s Homecoming celebration. Whether they will go into that game at 2-2 (their current record) or 1-3 is yet to be seen.