avoiding 4-on-5

[jayedgarwho]

A coach writing here -- as the post count, and probably much else, makes obvious. Never earned a dime with a whistle, and simply want information, not a fight. While I think our young game officials may have gotten this one wrong this weekend, nobody had a NFHS rulebook on site and so we were all guessing. Probably a simple question for this group.

Summer tournament, NFHS rules apply, 9th grade boys. We have seven players dressed. Tie game, two minutes left, our P6 and P7 each have been DQ'd with five fouls. Our P5 twists a knee and is moving very gingerly -- he can hop around a bit, but clearly this is nothing he is going to walk off.

The ruling was, if we remove him from the game, we have to play four-on-five. He wants to stay, and I swallow hard and agree to leave him in (and luckily, by the x-rays, this decision did not make anything worse).

I suggested at the time (without knowing for sure) that we should have been allowed to sub for him with a DQ'd player and take a tech every time that DQ'd player committed a foul -- just as if D5 was leaving the game due to five fouls.

These particular officials weren't agreeing, even, that this would be the rule if he had picked up a foul DQ rather than a possible ACL injury. They suggested that it would be 4-on-5 then as well. So plainly we weren't getting anywhere on our argument in the injury scenario.

What is the rule in the injury scenario? Can we replace him with a DQ'd player, and face the consequences? Which are? (The other coach was suggesting that even if we could do it it would be a tech more often than when the DQ'd player committed a foul.) If we could replace him, who gets to choose whether D6 or D7 comes in?

D5 had three personals at the time. If they were right that he could not leave for injury and be replaced, could we have had him try to limp over and commit two fouls? Or would that be pointless because the rule is that the last DQ'd player is the one who needs to stay in the game for 5-on-5?

My 2004-05 rulebook got washed away and I was thriftily waiting for the new edition. My mistake.