Thursday, January 28, 2010

Game of the Year Recap / Hoops for Haiti

Quick post tonight as it's been a long week at work and I haven't slept much. Last week, I proclaimed that a girls varsity game I was officiating would be a game of the year. Early on, it didn't quite look that way as the home team was down by double digits early. Slowly but surely the home team came back. With the game tied at 32-32, the visiting team had the ball with 31 seconds left. They wound the clock down and shot a jumper that missed badly. The home team got the rebound and threw a strong outlet pass to their streaking point guard. The guard laid the ball in at the buzzer to win 34-32.

Officiating wise, things went well. There were a few situations with the clock we had to handle early on. We eventually had to have an adult take over as the kid proved they were having trouble with running the clock. For the most part, I think my partner and I were on the same page, though he did make a couple of calls (foul / jump ball) at the show clock buzzer that got the coaches up in arms a bit. However, we had to be please that the game was decided by the players at the end.

I am officiating a couple of games this weekend. I will be officiating a JV boys game tomorrow and a JV girls game Saturday.

The JV Girls game will be interesting as it is part of a "Hoops for Haiti" jamboree organized by a girls varsity team here in the area. Besides the JV game I am working, there will be four other varsity games playing. All the gate receipts from the game will be donated to the earthquake relief effort in Haiti. I am volunteering my time in this worthwhile cause as will be other officials.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Game of the Year?

Between work, officiating and generally being busy, blogging about my officiating hasn't been a priority. However, it is worth noting that I may have my game of the year on Friday. As I wrote in earlier blog postings, I didn't receive a ton of high school assignments this year. I've gotten a few quality games during the preseason though the regular season games have been a mixed bag.

On Friday, I got a game between two games with great overall records (12-3 for both teams). However, each team is 1-2 in league play which dampens matters a bit. Despite the slow start for both teams, I think the game will be very competitive and there should be a large crowd as the game is in the evening.

I'm looking forward to game and will post on anything that happens.