Compound Fracture

[JugglingReferee]

Yesterday I worked the Catholic school's elementary school tournament. Their regular season isn't long, with the coaches officiating. Our board works their year end seeded tournament. The quality of play isn't very good. However, each team usually has a player that plays rep ball, and another 1-2 players that knows what they're doing. The other 7-8 players are noticeably below average players.

Games are 5-minute running-time quarters, except for the last 2 minutes which is stop time. They play cross-court at a Catholic High School, and only 1 ref works each game. I would work from FTLE to FTLE, often migrating down to the L position if the team looked like they'd have no problem with possession control (and possibly rotating). The sidelines were a light colour, so to get the best look, I often favoured ball side, which might require switching sides. In the two finals, we work 2-man.

Us 3 officials (1 on each court) heard a total of 1 "complaint". It was a from a coach that didn't make it to the semi-finals. We were thanked many times, and the day began with prayer.

If you find the time, please pray for the young man from Holy Family Elementary School that suffered a compound fracture of his left radius (and likely the ulna as well) while playing in the boy's final. We moved the game from court 2 to the empty court 1, where his team won in overtime.

Funny note: at the beginning of overtime, I told each coach that they have 1 timeout, and we play 2 minutes, whichever 5 players you want (the 4 quarters are 5-on, 5-off). The (eventual) winning coach, a very attractive athletic woman, told me, "I don't know what to say in a timeout". LOL I told her, "then use a timeout to slow the game down if the other team has lots of momentum".