Pass Interference

[drinkeii]

Hi - I run an intramural flag football program at my high school - 250 kids or so play for 2 months, roughly 120 games, and we have a pretty well developed set of rules for them to follow, and student officials who call most of the games. I am a high school sports official, but football is not one of the sports I officiate.

We had a situation yesterday in one of our playoff games. A pass was sent over the players to a receiver in the endzone. A defensive player following the offensive player reached up in the general direction of the pass, with probably almost no likelihood of getting to it and making the catch, but on the way up with his arm, he came up under the intended receiver's arm, pushing it up about a foot, and, in my opinion, interfering with the ability for the receiver to catch the ball.

In high school football rules, what would the ruling on this be? I called pass interference, and since it was in the endzone that it occurred, I gave them the ball on the one yard line (our rules say defensive pass interference is enforced from the spot of the foul, and an automatic first down - we don't really have a rule saying that you would bring it out of the endzone in that case, but it seemed like the right thing to do).

Any ideas or rulings from high school football apply? Thanks for any help in advance.