The end

[SCalScoreKeeper]

So sad,
My girls team has their final match of the year tomorrow.My season however is not over.If our boys team wins their semifinal match tomorrow I will be calling lines for their championship match on Saturday night.Any advice for doing a varsity boys match?I've done two JV matches and plenty of JV girls matches with no trouble at all.I know the level of play will be a lot faster than on JV but other than that have no idea what to expect.When does postseason play start for everyone else?

[PaREF]

Our playoffs (Girls only. Boys play in the spring) started on Saturday. District finals are this Saturday, Regionals are next Saturday, and state finals are on the 20th.

One suggestion would be to go out to a line during warmups and watch as the players are hitting. This helps to "warm up' the eyes, i.e. help acclimate you to the speed of the ball prior to actually having to make any judgement calls.

[BlitzkriegBob]

The playoffs here started three weeks ago. They are concluding tomorrow, with the state championships being held in all four classifications. One of the odd things that I encountered upon moving to Indiana was that the fall sports start playing before the actual school year starts. There's probably a couple of reasons for that. They want to make sure to finish up outdoor sports like girls' golf, soccer, and cross country before the weather gets too cold, and they also want them to be over in order to clear the way for the basketball season, which is of course king (and queen) here. Girls' basketball starts in three days.

As for line judging, Jan made an excellent suggestion in a recent discussion here about being a LJ.

[Andy]

My season ended last week. I was only offered one set of playoff games, but it was on a date that I was not available. I only work the HS girls season, so I'm hanging up the whistle until next fall....getting ready for softball now.

[SCalScoreKeeper]

Hey All,
Tonight I had the privilege of working two boys matches (3'rd place & championship) for the Inland Coast League as a lines judge.Great volleyball with two of the better officials for my area-a highly respected college/HS official and our association president.My first match was a mild upset with the #5 seed defeating the #4 seed in three and in the Championship #1 defeated #2 in four.

Paref-thank you for the suggestion about observing hitting periods! It really helped me to get acclimated to the speed factor from working girls volleyball most of the fall.Boys do play in the spring here too but CIF-SS (Our sanctioning body) allows this group of schools (7) to play in the fall because they do not offer football at any level.

I had a very good night on the lines working hard to get the best angles and made a lot of tight calls on my endline and sideline.Had several calls where the teams wanted touches but I made my calls and stayed with them.Both officials and all the coaches complimented me on a great job.Made only one out call that was overturned in seven sets.Had a couple of interesting oddities though:

1.We played this night on a neutral floor at a local university.For whatever reason their ref's stand did not have the appropriate padding so the R1 worked from floor level. Something that I've never seen in five years.This has been a year of that though-I'll explain later.

2.The downer of a great night-After the championship match a parent from the losing school came up to me and the other LJ (AD for the school running this event) saying something about a player supposedly throwing gum onto the floor and how it should result in cards.Well he went on for about five minutes before his daughter pulled him away from the both of us. Also included in his diatribe was something about how unsporting behavior is all of our responsibilities to call.Sorry sir but carding people is not our job and if the R1 and R2 did not see it you're out of luck.
Reminded me of something a junior college PE instructor/softball coach said in class regarding HS sports fans and comments about officiating: "A 1/3rd of fans have no clue, a 1/3rd of fans know a little bit, and a 1/3rd can make your night miserable.

Firsts this season:

1.Coach ejection-Had the opposing coach ejected in my girls team's home opener by our association's instructional chair in set 5.I had a JV girl on the line by his bench and she made a call that R1 agreed with.It was out of bounds off the tape while coach wanted a touch.He went off on the R1 yelling he sucked and took a couple of menacing steps toward the lines judge while throwing his hat on the court.He earned yellow,red,and yellow/red in about 90 seconds.On his way out of our gym he ended up kicking the exit doors.This school had just changed AD's and this guy took the situation seriously-he made this coach apologize to the JV girl and our AD in a letter.The former AD would've just said "Serve your suspension and don't do it again."How many coach ejections have y'all had in your time?

2.Aforementioned story of parent confronting both LJ's from tonight.

3.Aforementioned story of R1 working from floor level because host school did not have proper padding.

4.Most deciding set matches in a season-7 (My team unfortunately went 2-5 in those.)

Basketball starts in 3 weeks-can't wait!