[Dan_ref]

Originally posted by rainmaker
Girls' low level varsity. Team A ahead by quite a bit. Team B has the ball just above their own 3-point line. Ball is passed in but receiver, B2, looks away at the wrong moment. A1 steps up to intercept. B3 sees what's happening, jumps to tip the ball, lands wrong, falls, and just as she's hitting the floor, she sort of bumps A1 who stumbles, but gets the ball and passes it downcourt for a fast break.

A1 stumbles to regain her balance, and is standing about 8 feet from B3, looking at her leg and whining about getting bumped. A1 meantime, is slowly recovering her wits, finally gets up and starts to head up (down?) the floor. As she runs past A1, A1 reaches out and hits her. It was calculated, cold-blooded vengeance. Except that it was so poorly aimed and so incredibly lame, I'm not sure B3 even knew it happened. I whistled it dead, and called....

.... a foul. Just a plain old personal foul. This wasn't a conscious decision, it just sort of happened. Coach removed player immediately. I'm not sure whether she played again or not, I don't remember.

Thinking back, I suppose it should have been a flagrant, but it was such a sissy-hit, so namby-pamby, I still can't feel I goofed. I already know ahead of time the breadth of responses I'll get here, but I'm gonna ask anyway, and see if there's anything that makes me change my mind.

Just for the record, I was being evaluated, and the evaluator didn't say anything about the call either for or against.

The question is, did I kick it?

[Edited by rainmaker on May 17th, 2004 at 11:54 PM]

I think you handled it correctly. Could it be that based on her behavior up until that point you gave A1 the benefit of the doubt? Anyway you went with your instincts and it obviously worked. Late in a blow out it seems the best idea is to find & take the path of least resistance. If the game sitch was tenser then maybe you need to come down harder. And since your evaluator didn't mention it I guess he agreed with your call.