My HS season ended on Saturday. This year, my partner and I were selected to officiate the 4A division II state championship match. One team was undefeated, the other team had one loss - to the undefeated team in a five game match very early in the season.
I was the R1, I had been R2 in a championship match a few years ago, but never the R1. I found myself somewhat nervous at the start and one of the coaches started complaining before the match even started about the warmup procedure. I think I settled down about halfway through the first game and called a decent match. Undefeated team won in four games with neither team ever leading by more than 4 points at any time in the match.
Looking back, I felt that I had a pretty good season...I did pick up some stuff from reading this board that I tried to incorporate and felt that it helped my officiating. I don't do any club ball. so
VB is over for me until next fall, unless I can pick up some boys games in the spring. I'm very active in our HS softball umpires group and we have a shortage of umps, so I have to do a lot of SB games in the spring.
I will still check in on this board from time to time, but my experience is that it seems to die after the fall HS season....Thanks to all for the input and discussion this season.
For those of you that still have some HS ball left - good luck and have fun!