A continuing dispute over the disqualification, and subsequent reversal, of a Spanish Fork boys wrestler at the 5A state championships in February now has Box Elder preparing for legal action against the UHSAA, the Standard-Examiner has learned.

In a Feb. 24 letter addressed to UHSAA legal counsel Mark Van Wagoner, Box Elder contends the reversed disqualification of Spanish Fork senior Cahill Simons when Box Elder senior Bostyn Tucker sustained a bite mark on his left forearm during the final moments of the 138-pound semifinal round on Feb. 11 in Orem.

Tucker won the semifinal by technical fall, moving on to meet Wasatch’s Daxton Bonner in the title round; Simons later returned to the tournament following what Box Elder considers an improper, and illegitimate, review of the semifinal incident.

Box Elder’s letter, drafted by Salt Lake City-based attorney Taylor Hadfield, outlines the following evidence supporting the school’s argument against the UHSAA’s reversal:

Courtesy of Box Elder High School

• A visible bite mark on Tucker’s left forearm was revealed to Craner and his staff following Tucker’s technical fall win. Craner said that Tucker received an “unnecessary roughness penalty” while performing a mat return, a move forcefully restraining an opponent to the mat, earlier in the match; Craner said both wrestlers shook hands following Tucker’s win.

• Upon notice of the bite, UHSAA tournament head official Brady Cottam disqualified Simons and stripped Spanish Fork of 12 total points – nine points earned by Simons and three more for the penalty, included under the NFHS wrestling rulebook’s definition of “flagrant misconduct” and grounds for disqualification and elimination from competition.

• Upon arriving in Orem for the finals on Feb. 12, Cottam and another tournament official, Don Christensen, inform Craner and the Bees staff that Tucker, after reviewing video of the semifinal match, “did not react adversely” when the bite occurred and that, due to a lack of sufficient evidence, Simons’ disqualification would be reversed and his 12 points restored.

The official results of the 5A tournament show Simons returning to the 138-pound bracket, but medically forfeiting his remaining matches with Olympus’ Pace Williams and Timpview’s Enoc Oteo Torgenson in the consolation rounds.

“I asked my trainer, who was at state as well, as he said no one is reported for medically forfeiting for a concussion,” Craner said. “That’s another eyebrow raise if you will, so they put his (12) points back on the board, we’re confused and we start hearing rumors that Spanish Fork had got a lawyer and threatened (the) UHSAA.”

A phone conversation between Hadfield and Van Wagoner, as recalled by Hadfield, revealed that an attorney on behalf of Spanish Fork personally contacted Van Wagoner pursuing a reversal of the Simons’ disqualification following the semifinal round.

Craner, upon hearing of potential pressures handed down by Spanish Fork, consulted tournament officials and was assured, at the time, that no outside voices influenced the decision to reverse Simons’ disqualification.

“I said ‘OK, you understand that would cause my confidence, and every coach here’s confidence, here to be shaken in the system if that were true,” Craner said. “They said ‘Oh yeah, that never crossed our plate.'”

When asked for comment Monday, UHSAA assistant director Jeff Cluff told said, at that point, he was unaware of any legal discussions by either school and declined to discuss the matter further. On Wednesday, UHSAA assistant director Chris Shipman, who oversees wrestling for the association, also declined to comment further on Box Elder’s dispute.

Box Elder further argued in its letter that the UHSAA, according to its handbook, ignored its policy prohibiting players or coaches from appealing an ejection. The NFHS wrestling rulebook also doesn’t contain any such policy or guidelines for overruling a disqualified wrestler.

Craner cited a Zoom meeting with multiple UHSAA representatives, including Van Wagoner and Hadfield, where a document entitled “Bite Identification Protocol,” was provided to Box Elder as the means for reversal of Simons’ disqualification.

“They said they’d been using this document for the last 10 years for their officials,” Craner said. “I’d never heard of it and I’ve been coaching for close to 10 years. I’ve asked some other coaches around if they’d seen that before and they said no… It looked like it’d been whipped up in two seconds on a Google Doc.”

The official results of the 5A tournament declared Spanish Fork (331.0) as the state champion, finishing 11.5 points better than Box Elder (319.5) as a team. The 12 points restored to Spanish Fork were enough to decide the state champion, but Box Elder, as claimed in their letter, received no appeal after the tournament.

The letter closes with multiple demands, including the UHSAA publicly declaring Box Elder as the “rightful state champion” in what the school considers accountability for reversing Simons’ disqualification and the 12 points tied with his eligibility.

“I keep telling people I just don’t want this to happen to us again or anybody else,” Craner said.

“We ended up losing by 11.5 points, and with those (12) points off the board we win by half a point… Our guys worked, some of them all their lives for this, they’ve set goals and all these things and to come up short like this is really sad.”

Box Elder and the UHSAA last discussed the matter in mid-March, when the school received the above bite protocol as reason for the disputed decision to return Spanish Fork’s wrestler and the 12 points to the team’s score. Box Elder is currently considering its options, including legal action, as the current academic calendar veers toward summer break.

Connect with sports reporter Conner Becker via email at cbecker@standard.net and X @ctbecker.