It took me two days to recover from this game!

[Mark Padgett]

It was the closest I've come to an OT game in quite some time. I get an email two days ago in the morning to work a 5th grade boys "competitive" game that evening. Yeah - I said "competitive". I accept the game and, unfortunately, my partner doesn't show, so I have to work it myself. No big deal, but the game was extremely close the entire way.

End of Q1, home up by 2. Halftime, home up by 2. End of Q3, game tied. The point guard on the visiting team, who was the shortest kid on the court by far, hit all four of his 3-point attempts in the first three quarters and hit one midway through Q4. We get to 7 seconds left on the clock in Q4 and the home team is up by 2. Visitors to inbound under their own basket and they run a neat inbound play that frees up their point guard in the corner. He shoots a 3 and it rims out. A teammate gets the rebound and their coach yells for a timeout, which I grant. I look at the clock - there's two seconds left.

They come out after the timeout to inbound on the endline. I point to the spot and hand the ball to the inbounder. HE RUNS DOWN THE ENDLINE WITH THE BALL!!! I blow the whistle and the visiting coach goes nuts - not at me, but at the kid. Home team requests and is granted a timeout. When they come out, the inbounder looks at me and says, "Don't worry - I'm not going anywhere" and grins. They throw a long pass into their frontcourt and A2 just holds the ball for two seconds. Team B runs over to him to foul but the horn goes off.

As I stated in the thread title - it took me two days to recover. My poor heart can't take these tight games. The worst part was if it went into OT, I wouldn't have anyone to blame.