SJSU volleyball team with transgender player will be named conference champion if tournament opponents forfeit

A heated national controversy implicit a transgender jock connected the San Jose State women's volleyball squad could beryllium the catalyst for a league rubric successful the upcoming Mountain West Conference tournament. 

The tourney is scheduled to statesman Nov. 27, and San Jose State is the No. 4 seed. A league spokesperson told Fox News Digital the league is preparing a program successful the lawsuit teams successful the tourney garbage to look San Jose State amid the controversy. 

That program includes the conference's willingness to admit San Jose State arsenic the Mountain West champion if it reaches the last and the different squad successful the last forfeits and refuses to play, arsenic league rules state, the spokesperson confirmed. If that concern does play out, it would besides assistance San Jose State an automatic bid successful the NCAA tournament. 

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San Jose State University Spartans caput manager Todd Kress speaks with reporters aft a nonaccomplishment successful an NCAA Mountain West women’s volleyball crippled against the Colorado State University Rams successful Fort Collins, Colo., Oct. 3, 2024. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

The determination to forfeit would beryllium near up to the squad that would look San Jose State. If the Spartans' opponents marque the determination to forfeit, past San Jose State would person to beryllium declared champion. 

"If we get to a title game, and it's San Jose State vs. whoever, if that instauration forfeits the game, past San Jose State wins that match, and past they are tourney champions. And they would beryllium the automatic qualifier retired of the Mountain West," the spokesperson said. 

However, that existent strategy could alteration precise quickly, pending a proceeding Thursday. 

An exigency proceeding has been scheduled for Thursday successful Denver. A justice volition find whether to assistance an injunction that seeks to disqualify San Jose State from competing successful the league tournament, disqualify Blaire Fleming from competing successful the league tourney and/or region losses from the records of teams who protested by not competing against SJSU.

The league spokesperson confirmed the league could person to discard its program pending the result of the hearing. 

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San Jose State finished the regular play with a 14-5 grounds and a 12-5 league record. Seven of its wins and six of its league wins came via forfeit by opposing teams amid the controversy. 

San Jose State subordinate Brooke Slusser has joined 1 suit against the NCAA and filed different alongside different Mountain West players against the league implicit the alleged beingness of her transgender teammate, Blaire Fleming. Slusser has alleged the schoolhouse deliberately hid Fleming's earthy commencement enactment from her and different players connected the squad and astir the conference. 

Slusser antecedently told Fox News Digital successful an exclusive interrogation she and her teammates are unsure astir what a imaginable postseason tally mightiness look similar arsenic they navigate a demoralized locker room.

"We're conscionable mostly wondering are teams adjacent gonna play us, period, if we spell there? Because of conscionable everything that's happened this season," Slusser said. "It seems similar each fewer days it looks similar It'll beryllium a good time and everything's mean and past thing other happens. So, I genuinely bash deliberation everyone's conscionable benignant of taking things time by time and taking the punches arsenic they come."

San Jose State caput volleyball manager Todd Kress has suggested the hostility successful the locker country whitethorn beryllium not beryllium "a atrocious thing" arsenic the squad looks to vie for a championship.

"Sometimes hostility is not needfully a atrocious thing, and I'm not saying that determination is. But, you know, erstwhile you bash person hostility oregon you bash person confrontations, I mean, I'm a idiosyncratic that believes that, from confrontation, bully things usually happen. We settee our differences, and we enactment done it," Kress told reporters Oct. 3. 

After quality of the suit and allegations against Fleming began to circulate, San Jose State was dealt respective forfeits, including from league opponents Boise State, Utah State, Wyoming and Nevada. Wyoming and Boise State person each forfeited 2 matches against the Spartans. 

Utah State and Boise State are successful the tourney representation and could beryllium imaginable opponents for San Jose State successful Las Vegas. They person already taken losses. Boise State accepted 2 losses aft refusing to look Fleming earlier successful the season. 

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Fleming has been 1 of the apical players successful the league and an violative anchor for San Jose State this season, adjacent amid the controversy. Fleming is 3rd successful the league successful mean kills per service with 3.86 and amassed 297 full kills connected the twelvemonth contempt playing 7 less games than expected owed to the forfeits. It's helped springiness San Jose State the 3rd champion hitting percent successful the Mountain West. 

Slusser alleged successful her suit that Fleming's spikes question much than 80 mph. 

"Brooke estimates that Fleming’s spikes were traveling upward of 80 mph, which was faster than she had ever seen a pistillate deed a volleyball," Slusser’s ailment states. "The girls were doing everything they could to dodge Fleming’s spikes but inactive could not afloat support themselves."

Fleming antecedently acceptable a single-match grounds astatine John Champe High School with 30 kills successful a lucifer and a single-season grounds of 266 kills for the school's girls volleyball team. Footage from the athlete's Hudl page of the school-record 30-kill lucifer successful September 2019 shows however hard and accelerated Fleming's spikes came down astatine the precocious schoolhouse level against pistillate opponents.

President-elect Trump went retired of his mode to remark astir footage of 1 of Fleming's plays successful which the subordinate spiked a shot astatine San Diego State subordinate Keira Herron successful a lucifer earlier this season.

"I saw the slam. It was a slam. I ne'er saw a shot deed truthful hard," Trump said during a Fox News municipality hall. "But different people, adjacent successful volleyball, they’ve been permanently — I mean, they've been truly wounded badly. Women playing men."

San Jose State's squad has had nary reservations astir making Fleming the centerpiece of the discourtesy amid the ongoing controversy. The squad mobbed Fleming successful solemnisation aft a game-winning work ace against rival Colorado State successful their elder time lucifer Nov. 16. 

San Jose State has repeatedly defended the beingness of Fleming connected the team. 

"Our athletes each comply with NCAA and Mountain West Conference policies and are eligible to play nether the rules of those organizations. Our volleyball squad members person earned the close to compete, and we are profoundly disappointed for them and with them that they are being denied those opportunities done cancellations and forfeits. We are besides arrogant of however they person persevered done these challenges connected the court," a connection provided to Fox News Digital by a assemblage spokesperson said.

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