First Game

[Stat-Man]

I had my first game this evening (JV girls).

I think I did ok for my first time.

I wish I had told myself "No ball watching" a few more times. I was all set to call a held ball out of my primary ... only to have partner tell me it was 2 visiting players who fell down with the ball. Needless to say, I called the travel instead.

I had another situation where coach wanted a travel. While the play looked weird, it didn't look illegal, so I called nothing.

There was another play where my partner was lead and he had a collision right in front of him. This time, I trusted his judgement on the no-call but the home coach wanted a block or charge. In retrospect, I probably should have mentioned my partner was right there and had the better angle.

It wasn't all bad. In the second half, partner & I communicated more during timeouts, which was a plus. When the score was tied and he told me "no overtime," I could help but smile and tell him that was rule #1.

I was a bit disappointed my partner didn't show until 18 minutes before tip-off as I would have liked to have had a pre-game. (I didn't think an on-floor pre-game would look right.) And there were times when he wouldn't switch as I expected and times when he switched when I didn't think he would. In those cases, I just adjusted my position accordingly. I thought this was odd since he told me at the half how he has officiated for 9 years and has a varsity schedule this year aside from this game. He was quick to leave after the game, but I opted to watch the first half of the varsity game.

Barring any unscheduled changes, my next game is in three weeks. I definitely need to remind myself not to ball-watch, and to better judge contact and travels in my primary. Hopefully game #2 is better.