Mary Francis, who led Sumner High of East Sullivan to the last two Eastern Maine Class C girls tennis championships and reached the quarterfinals of the 2004 state schoolgirl singles tournament, has been ruled ineligible by the school to compete for the Tigers this spring.

That decision was reached Monday, said Sumner principal Mike Eastman.

“It’s been an ongoing process for the last week or week and a half,” said Eastman. “It was reached in accordance with the MPA [Maine Principals’ Association] and our activities code.”

Francis attended Sumner full time as a freshman, according to her mother, Kim Francis, and then took classes both at Sumner and as a home-schooled student her sophomore and junior years before being home-schooled full time this year.

According to its athletic and extracurricular activity handbook, Sumner mandates that a student be enrolled in six classes in order to participate on an athletic team, and Eastman said Francis did not qualify under that standard.

In addition, Sumner’s activities code says a player must join a team within 14 calendar days of the official preseason start date in order to be eligible to compete. Sumner begins practices according to MPA guidelines for each sports season, Eastman said, and for the 2005 tennis season practices began Monday, March 28. Eastman said Francis did not join the team until after that 14-day window expired.

“It’s unfortunate for her,” Eastman said. “One of the things about home-schooling is that you don’t have that continuous relationship with an athletic director about what you need to do to be eligible. If this had come up sooner, we might have been able to help.”

Kim Francis said Sumner officials were being more strict with their adherence to school policy related to eligibility for extracurricular activities such as tennis this year than they had been in previous years.

She contacted a state Department of Education official with responsibility for home-schooling issues about the matter, but was told that the school has the final decision in such cases.

“We’re very disappointed,” Kim Francis said, “but there’s not much we can do about it at this point.”

Mary Francis was Sumner’s top singles player in each of her first three years of high school, helping the Tigers win Eastern Maine team titles in 2003 and 2004. She was seeded fifth in the 2004 state singles tournament and reached the quarterfinals before falling to No. 4 Kristen Meahl of Falmouth 6-1, 6-3.

Francis competed in one team match for the Tigers this spring, on May 2 against Penobscot Valley of Howland.

It was in the aftermath of that match that eligibility questions were raised, and after a subsequent meeting with school officials the final decision ultimately was reached.

“I’m upset for Mary, and I’m sort of upset for the larger picture of high school tennis in this area because she’s the best player around and sort of represents the whole area,” said Sumner coach Joe Haroutunian.