Wrong ball???

[Rusty Gilbert]

Confession time...

Getting ready to start game the other night, the R throws the ball to me (U1) and says, "you toss."

I take the ball to other side of division line, practice a couple of tosses, bounce it a couple of times, and, when everyone is ready, blow the whistle and throw it up between the two women jumpers.

3 minutes into the game (home team 4, visitors 2) the ball goes out of bounds and one of the players says, "Hey ref, that's a boy's ball."

She was right!

Visiting coach wants us to "start the game over." No coach, we're not going to start the game over.

But, and this is his quote, "that's a correctable error."

No coach, it's not a correctable error, but it is a screw-up on our part. And we're going to handle it just like we would if we had started the game going the wrong way (another official's MISTAKE: NCAA 5.1.3 and NFHS 4.5.4): get the right ball, everything stands as is (points, fouls, time consumed, etc.), and keep going.

Of course we talked with assigning coordinator later and told him what happened. His counsel: "Let one or two of the players hold the ball before tossing it up. They'll tell you immediately if it's not a girl's ball."

Not bad advice. I think I'll incorporate it into my "pre-toss" routine.