Mikal Harpster spent much of last Wednesday evening excitedly calling relatives to inform them he had qualified for the state golf tournament. The Warrenton senior had breathed a sigh of relief after barely making the cut at Wednesday’s Class 3 sectional at Aberdeen Golf Club. But by the following night, Harpster was making another round of phone calls — for a far less joyous reason. The Missouri State High School Activities Association informed Warrenton activities director Craig Frazier on Thursday about a mistake that had been made in the qualification process. After the correction was made, it had eliminated Harpster, teammate Ethan Luecke and four other competitors from the state tournament.  It was certainly not the type of news coach Rich Barton was prepared to deliver. “To look into the eyes of the kids and see their hearts broken is one of the hardest things I’ve had to do as a coach,” lamented Barton. “You go from total jubilation to total devastation.” Harpster and Luecke had both anxiously awaited the results, after having shot an 85. “My heart dropped whenever I heard the news,” recalled Luecke. MSHSAA says the sectional manager didn’t fully understand the team qualification rules. While four schools — Lutheran South, Moberly, Warrenton and Westminster — had qualified for sectionals as a team, others were also eligible to compete as a team. Priory was one of those exceptions. Having entered four individual golfers into the sectional, they could count their four scores toward a chance at reaching state as a team. The rule is that two schools from each sectional advance to state as a team, and Priory was eligible to be one of those chosen. But tournament officials weren't aware of that rule on Wednesday, so Lutheran South was believed to have earned second team qualifying spot behind Westminster. “The sectional manager didn't count the four-person team in the team competition,” explained MSHSAA communications director Jason West. “(Priory) had the second best score, so they got the automatic team qualification ...When we made the switch on our automatic team qualifiers, that affected the individual qualifiers.” West says the mishap was unfortunate, but MSHSAA has to abide by the USGA rules, which state this type of error is correctable up until the date of the next competition.“According to the USGA rules of golf, that was a correctable error, and there is no timeline on changing it,” explained West.As a result, Priory took Lutheran South’s place as the second team to represent the sectional at state. Barton felt the oversight was perhaps a result of the sectional round being added for the first time this season. But West says the rule has existed for a while in district play, just not on the sectional level. “The four-person team rule is one that has been in affect for several years,” said West. “This was just an oversight by a manager.” Nonetheless, Barton says he is proud of the way Harpster and Luecke have responded to the disappointment.“Both of our kids handled it like gentleman and realized they could have shot better to avoid putting themselves in this position,” said Barton. He says letters were written and petitions formed to allow the original qualifiers to compete at state, but MSHSAA stuck with its decision. While he didn't agree with the outcome, he understands the reasoning. “I look at it this way,” said Barton. “Is it wrong what they did? Yes. Is it right what they did? Yes.” With Warrenton hosting the sectional tournament next season, Barton says he will take this as a lesson learned the hard way. “I knew there was going to be growing pains from adding a sectional, but I just didn't know it was going to be this bad,” said Barton.”We'll learn from this and prepare better next year to prevent this from happening again.”Harpster is quick to assert that he could have avoided the circumstance by shooting a lower score. It was his worst outing of the season, and it could not have come at a more inopportune time. “I definitely could have played better,” said Harster. “It shouldn't have even came to that. It was terrible timing to play my worst round of the season, but it happened.” He had been looking forward to avenging a disappointing second day at the MSHSAA Championships from last season. “It's tough to overcome, but I'm just going to use it to try to fuel the fire,” said Harpster. “It's a learning experience. Everything happens for a reason, even though I don't know why this happened.” While it wasn't quite as tragic for Luecke as a freshman, he felt a little cheated out of the opportunity to make four consecutive trips to state. “It just makes me more determined to make sure I'm not going to miss another cut,” said Luecke. “I want to make sure I don't shoot in the 80s ever again.” His heart aches more for his teammate than himself, as there are plenty of rounds left in Luecke's high school golf career. “I still have three more years, but this was his last chance,” said Luecke. The additional three Warrenton golfers didn't have to deal with the same type of drama. For senior Patrick Koch, it was instantaneous disappointment. He had determined throughout his round that a third straight trip to state was probably not in the cards. Koch started the day feeling ill and could not overcome a rough front nine. He carded a 92 during the final round of his prep career. Sophomore T.J. Lafaver shot a 95, while junior Tyler Romaker carded a 99.