Obstruction, crash interference, malicous contact

[Dakota]

One of our esteemed members posted this on eteamz. I am quoting WMB here because this is a better forum for an umpire-to-umpire discussion on this topic.

This year NFHS Rule 8.6.14 simply reads, "She remains on her feet and maliciously crashes into a defensive player." Penalty is called out and ejected. This rule now is strickly limited to malicious contact.

For any other contact we now fall back on 8.6.13 which is the "does not legally slide and causes illegal contact" rule. The penalty is called out.

The revised articles 13 and 14 do read better now. I suspect that too many players were getting ejected after collisions, that the Committee wanted to definitely separate malicious contact from illegal contact.

Situation: F2 is blocking home without possession of the ball, standing up the baseline toward 3rd a couple of steps. R1 is attempting to score on what R1 believes may be a close play based on the antics of 3B coach as she was rounding 3rd. F2 is too far up the line for R1 to slide and still reach home. There is contact between R1 and F2 (F2 still does not have the ball).

I've left the nature of the contact unstated, but that is the crux of the discussion I would like to have, so add to the scenario to explain, should you choose to engage this discussion.

Question: Where is the boundary between obstruction (and batter awarded home), crash interference (and batter ruled out), and malicious contact (and batter ruled out and ejected)?

NFHS or ASA... primarily NFHS, since the quote above suggests NFHS may believe too many are being ejected. In my experience, I think the issue is in the opposite direction - a reluctance to eject.