KY Referee Squabble - Outta Control

[BayStateRef]

UPDATE
Judge says 7th Region game can be played

The Courier-Journal

A Kentucky Court of Appeals judge has ruled that the Seventh Region boys’ high school basketball championship game between Jeffersontown and Ballard can be played on Monday night without referee Vic Montgomery.

After a brief hearing Monday afternoon, Judge William E. McAnulty Jr. found that an injunction postponing Saturday’s championship game was improperly issued.

Attorneys for Montgomery asked the Kentucky Supreme Court to hear an appeal of that decision, but the high court refused.

Montgomery had been ejected from another game Friday night after an altercation with another game official, and the Kentucky High School Athletic Association removed him then from officiating the final.

During halftime of the DeSales-Western game on Friday, Montgomery, who was working the game, and Darrell Bailey, who was scheduled to work the evening’s final game, got involved in an argument that started in the officials’ locker room and carried into the arena.

Both were escorted from the building. Montgomery was replaced for the second half of the DeSales-Western game, and Bailey was replaced in the Doss-Pleasure Ridge Park game.

Montgomery said the issue was a rumor that he had a hand in getting two other officials removed from the Jeffersontown-Male semifinal. Darin Stanfield and Alfred Smith, both Male graduates, were taken off that game after Jeffersontown protested.

The winner of the regional final is to advance to the state tournament this week in Lexington. The Seventh Region champion is scheduled to play 15th Region champion Johnson Central at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.