State Tourney, Finals... When the Refs Take Over...

After just blowing through the previous three rounds of the playoffs it was looking like Wylie was peaking and couldn't lose. And at the beginning of the game it looked like this game was going to be the same. Wylie jumped out to a quick lead and seemed to be hitting everything. Then Liberty-Eylau started to chip back at the lead. The first half of the game was fun to watch, it was pretty much what you would expect, both teams were playing really physical The second half, however, was a different story. All of the sudden the referees decided to start making every touch call that happened on both ends of the court. The second half was taking forever!

During the last couple minutes of the game the calls got ever weirder. The was an intentional foul called on Liberty-Eylau that was just a hard (smart) foul on an easy layup. Then there were another couple of questionable calls made and the game ended up going to overtime. By this time Wylie's two best post players had fouled out and Liberty-Eylau's posts were doing what they wanted in the paint. Still it was looking like a good game and Wylie hit a huge 3-pointer to tie the game in overtime with less than a minute left... and it was waved off due to a traveling call. Then after a real foul put Eylau up by four. Wylie brings the ball down the court and gets another questionable call to put them on the line. And again, with three seconds left after another questionable foul, Wylie misses a free throw and the girl from Liberty-Eylau pulls down the rebound and practically got run over by a Wylie player trying to get a quick foul, and she got called for traveling!! Finally Wylie shoots a 3-pointer to win the game and the ball was just off.

It was a really sad ending, not because of the missed shot at the end but because the referees changed the outcome of the game at least four times at the end of regulation and overtime combined. This had the potential to be one of those games that everyone could walk away saying "it's a shame someone had to lose that game." Instead everyone seemed to walk away thinking it didn't matter which team lost, either one of them could claim the refs screwed them. That's not the poor officiating that should be found in the state championship game.