Maryland 4A Girls Semifinal
Heres the report I promised last week.
I had a fantastic time from start to finish. The game itself was not that well played but was competitive and fun. We had a fantastic pregame using notes we all had brought with us rather than just running straight down a pregame card. This actually forced us all to contribute which helped us all to be on the same page from the tip to the final horn.
The Precision Time System is used at these games so we all had to get used to it. We were the ones starting the clock with the timer backing us up. As a crew we only had 2 times where we started it early (both during free throws), but we quickly corrected the time and moved on. In my opinion it is a great system.
The game itself was sloppy. Neither team played extremely well. They had trouble catching passes, making good passes, and hitting shots. It seemed like they were all nervous. White jumped out to an early 15-point lead as Blues center (65!) went to the bench with 2 fouls in the first quarter and then again with her 3rd foul in the second quarter. Her team was a little lost without her. We protected shooters, called handchecks, and kept the post play clean early on and the players quickly adapted and made adjustments to play within our level of control.
At halftime we reviewed what we had called and talked about our adjustments. We reemphasized calling displacement in the post early in the second half. At 7:08 of the third I called Blues center for her 4th foul on the offensive end. She clocked her defender with an elbow creating space and an obvious advantage. She went to the bench and the game seemed to be over. Soon after Blue started to run a full court press with a small team of the floor (4 guards and a good ball handling forward). They started coming back and took the lead with 7 minutes to go in the game.
Late in the game I made two strong calls (as others have referred to them) from the C on drives to the basket. These back-to-back strong drives to the basket (one and 1 and one 2 shot foul) pretty much sealed the game for Blue as they won the game by 14.
After the game we received a great deal of praise from other officials in attendance. Three people I had worked with on college games were in the stands and they had great things to say about our call selectivity, our consistency, and our control of the game. It was great to get such positive support.
I hope everyone gets the opportunity to work at this level at some point in his or her career! The entire experience was such a blast! Thanks for reading!
OCReferee
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