Kicked ball?

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by wyo96

A long discussion at our association meeting Monday night. The discussion surrounds the words "intentionally".
Rule reference:

9-4 it is a violation to "intentionally kick it, as in 4-29"
4-29 "Kicking the ball is intentionally striking it with any part of the leg or foot."

Is it a violation/intentional if the ball hits the leg of the defender when:

a: The defender jumps straight up and into the path of the ball, but the legs stay within the frame of the defender. (ie: as in a legal screen)

b: The defender jumps sideways into the path of the ball, but the legs are not extended and stay within the frame of the defender.

c: The defender jumps and spreads his legs wide as in a jumping jack?

d: Does your answerer change to any of the above if this is an out of bonds throw in and the thrower is trying to hit the leg of the defender (ie. count at 4 secs and thrower is trying to get a deflection OOB off of the defender.

The discussion arose from a non-call late in a tight game with under 15 sec to go. Just looking for some more opinions.

a. never be a violation.

b. may or may not be a violation....did the thrower fake the defender into jumping that way then threw the ball. If so, no violation. Even if the ball were thrown first, I'd lead towards no violation as the foot/leg wasn't extended to play the ball...the feet have to stay attached to the body.

c. violation every time.

d. Yes...if I think the thrower deliberately threw the ball off of the defender, then it can't be a violation as it wasn't the defender deliberately contacting the ball with the leg.