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Good Evening All,
Hope everyone's week went well. I worked a frosh/soph boys game tonight and had a snafu with the clock in overtime. I originally had a question, but after looking through the federation case book, I think I got my answer.
However, I still want to post the story for the benefit of the newer officials. Any vets who feel like commenting, please do as well....it is somewhat embarassing, but also a good lesson learned.
To set up the scenario, it was "Rivalary Night" for the league I worked tonight. Two schools from close proximity to each other played a "Quad": F/S Girls at 3:15 PM, F/S Boys at 4:45 PM, Varsity Girls at 6:15 PM and finally Varsity Boys at 7:45 PM.
The gym was packed, the energy was high and both teams really battled. As an added bonus, the game was TIED and went into overtime.
My partner, who is in his 2nd year and still learning his way around, asked me, "how long is the overtime period? Is it 5 minutes?". To be perfectly honest, my mind drew a bit of a blank. I simply did not know the timing rules in the book.
In any case, I nodded to my partner who told the clock person to set the clock to 5 minutes.
Interestingly, the story doesn't quiet end yet. Apparently, no one notices the clock's been set incorrectly....until there is 3:27 seconds left in the overtime period. The visiting coach beckons me and says to me "You guys set the clock for OT wrong, it should have been at 3 minutes".
Somehow, I managed to keep my composure enough to both coaches that we might have set the clock wrong, but we're going to play through it anyway. The visiting coach wasn't happy and said we should have corrected it by subtracting 2 minutes off the clock. I politely said "no, we're not, we're just going to keep playing".
I talked to my partner about it after I had talked to the coaches and we agreed to play through the rest of the period as is. I was TEMPTED to talk to one of the veteran officials who was working the girls varsity game after us. However, she was sitting in the stands and it wouldn't have been to good to mention that you screwed up in front of the fans.
The visiting team eventually won (thankfully). I was thinking if they lost, that the coach might file a protest because of the clock snafu.
SOOOOO, I'm sure a few people will have different reactions to this. Feel free to comment as you see fit.
As for me, my final comments/learning points for myself are:
The overtime period is FOUR MINUTES
If there is a snafu with the clock being set incorrectly too high (as in our case) and it is discovered with MORE than 4 minutes left in the OT period, the clock should be set to 4 minutes. If the snafu is discovered with less than 4 minutes left in the period, the game shall proceed normally with no clock adjustments.
I am glad I didn't listen to the coach about the clock. Though it was our fault that the clock was set incorrectly, we accidently did the right thing since it was discovered after the clock had gone down to 3:27.
A very interesting night at the gym. I could post a little more, but maybe later. TIme to shower and sleep!!
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