MERRIMACK - The New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association's Sportsmanship Committee will take no action against Merrimack High School for an incident involving the school's former baseball coach.

On Wednesday, Principal Ken Johnson shared the results of his own investigation of coach Ryan Anderson with the committee. Despite being disqualified, Anderson attended his team's warm-up session before the quarterfinal game against Exeter on June 5. Anderson had been ejected from a prior game and was disqualified from participating in the June 5 game in which Merrimack posted a 6-1 win.

The committee, according to Johnson, reviewed the case and decided that appropriate steps have already been taken by the district, voting unanimously to take no further action in the matter.

"As a school, we need to go forward from this," Johnson said on Thursday.

The NHIAA asked Johnson to investigate the incident after Anderson and Andy Krahling, the district's athletic director, voluntarily resigned following the violation.

According to the NHIAA rulebook, any coach who is disqualified and participates in the next scheduled interscholastic athletic event will cause that school's game to be forfeited in the event of a win.

“I feel good that the boys were able to play,” said Johnson, explaining it is now time to focus on finding a new athletic director and move beyond this situation.

So far, 40 applications have been received from potential candidates for the position, according to Johnson, who said a committee has been formed to review the resumes, narrow the field of candidates, interview the applicants and provide two final recommendations to the administration.

Ultimately, it will be up to the new athletic director to find a new baseball coach for the team. When asked whether Anderson could potentially be re-hired, Johnson stressed that the decision will lie with the newly hired athletic director.

In a letter to the editor, Anderson explained that he did not consider the warm-up session to be a part of the game event. He acknowledged hitting balls for fielding practice before the quarter-final game, but left the stadium before the game began.

To prevent Merrimack High School from having to forfeit the winning game, and therefore be out of championship contention, Anderson resigned. Merrimack eventually lost the Division I title game 5-4 against Concord on Saturday.