fewer than five

[hawkk]

In 5th or 6th grade I played in a tournament game in which we got down to less than 5 at the end of regulation, and down to 3 in the first OT period. We scored the first bucket of OT2, but no one knew we were supposed to be playing sudden death, and we lost at the end of the period.

I've also played several adult rec league games on both sides of uneven teams. In one I was part of a 3 on 5 for 15 minutes running time before we got our 4th and 5th -- we were leading at the time, but the three of us were so dog tired we could't keep up and we lost at full strength.

Poor thinking by the team with 5 is often the reason the smaller sized team can stay in the game -- as someone observed above, why would you stay in your 2-3 zone against fewer people -- but I've seen a lot of teams do it. And it is hard to be "up" when you're on the team with more players, it seems so obvious that you're going to win ...