MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — It was bound to happen.

Nearly every year during the Spring Fling, something controversial happens and becomes gossip fodder at every other event the rest of the week. This year it was when Marion County was eliminated from the Class AA baseball tournament Thursday after an apparent umpiring error.

With two outs in the sixth inning, home plate umpire George White held up two fingers on each hand to signal a 2-2 count. Marion pitcher Joe Muir’s curveball was called a strike and the Warriors thought they were out of the inning, trailing 3-2. But after Goodpasture Christian coaches protested that it should have been only the second strike, White instructed Warriors players to take the field again and put Goodpasture hitter Turner Cripp back at the plate.

On the following pitch, a called ball, White awarded Cripp a walk and the Cougars eventually blew open the tight game with four runs. Understandably upset, Marion fans grew increasingly vocal as the inning continued. Warriors coach Steven Roberts pleaded his case but eventually had to accept the call and the loss.

The athletes and coaches involved in the five-sport event are already under plenty of pressure when they reach a championship level, but add in packed stands and extra media attention and the chance for controversy has always been a part of the Fling. Here are a few of the more memorably outlandish story lines from past Flings.

The first day of the 2006 tennis tournament led to an eventual change in format. Several early matches ran long, including McCallie outlasting Baylor in a four-hour match in which two Red Raiders players cramped so severely they were taken to a local hospital. That all pushed the entire tournament later into the evening.

With matches still being played at midnight, the automatic timers at MTSU’s courts shut off the lights, causing a 20-minute delay. GPS finally finished its doubles matches at 1 a.m.

Last year, the TSSAA extended the tournament to four days, rather than continuing to try to cram so many matches into the first day.

In 2003, the first year the Fling was in Memphis, the softball tournament was played in Southhaven, Miss., because the original site was not ready in time. It was the first time a Tennessee state championship was contested outside the state since baseball in 1948.

In 2001 Knoxville Bearden’s Cameron Boyd was disqualified from the tennis tournament for using profanity. He yelled “Jesus Christ!” in the presence of a court official and a TSSAA official. Boyd and teamate Brandon Allan had just lost serve to go down 5-3 in the deciding set of their Class AAA doubles championship match, prompting Boyd’s outburst.

The TSSAA official told Allan and Boyd that shouting “Jesus Christ” is an automatic disqualification. The official explained that TSSAA rules allow “Jesus” and “Christ” but not “Jesus Christ” to be said.

“You allow ‘Jesus’ and you allow ‘Christ,’ but you won’t allow them together? That’s ridiculous,” Boyd said.

Once the TSSAA official defaulted the team and left the court, Allan and Boyd responded by throwing their rackets at their bench.

The language issue had previously cost Memphis University School a match against Baylor in 1996. MUS eighth-grader Zack Dailey was issued a default for saying “This sucks” in front of court umpire Bill Johnson. The TSSAA considers “sucks” an obscenity.

Germantown’s baseball team came to Chattanooga in 2000 with an impressive record and four SEC signees. But what most people remember is the backlash over the fact that six of the Red Devils players had transferred to the school the previous summer, including three Mississippi State signees and a Tennessee signee.

Taking advantage of a loophole in the TSSAA’s rulebook, the parents of all six players filed for divorce, with the mothers changing residency, which allowed the players to become eligible at Germantown. By sidestepping the TSSAA’s transfer rule, Germantown had put together what was thought to be a surefire Class AAA state-title team. Instead, the “suitcase six,” as they were later labeled, lost the championship to defending champion Oakland.

Shortly after the Fling, all six sets of parents “reconciled.” The next season, without those six players, Germantown went on to win the state title.

In 1999, despite leading 3-0 in the opening set in their first appearance in the Spring Fling’s A/AA tennis tournament, Brainerd twins Nathan and Nicholas Jackson had to default their quarterfinal match because their team uniforms were not school-issued. Accord to TSSAA rules, only shirts with school nicknames or plain shirts issued by the respective schools are permitted.

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