STASL match - R knee swollen now

Thought I ran my butt off and did well, but Bill still found things for me to work on. Can't say I agree with his specifics, but generally he was right. He actually mentioned something I was asking the crew about during halftime. I didn't mean to get assessed, but Mike had to get it done so he got me & Steve. Good game but not many calls for anyone. Definitely got gassed at the end. Everyone did. It was hot.

My ankles were sore during the game but post-game & next day my R knee feels swollen. Planning a hiking trip starting tomorrow so hopefully it settles down.

STLOA - Elmira @ HHDS first half

Garmin Connect
Always fun to be critiqued & cursed at by a senior official during a game.

Well THAT sucked

The day wasn't bad at all. It was fine / great until the afternoon. Work was busy and good. I left at 2:00pm to get the kids and that was fine. They did their homework, had something to eat, and were all good when I left at 4:10 to head to Horseheads for the varsity lax game between Horseheads & Union-Endicott. The game went okay, but I did have one or two hiccups - that's to be expected. The bad part was the field was horrible and my L ankle was hugely sore. I massaged it all the way to Corning and it started to feel better. Then it was on to the stadium for varsity Corning Hawks vs Ithaca. Again, for most of the game, it went fine. The third guy was a bit of a drag and there were some issues with communications and such, but the referee team worked it out.

THEN, the last 48 seconds happened. I was the trail official, as Ithaca was clearing. I knew the score was close but at the time I wasn't sure what it was exactly. The goalie came out, went to pass, was challenged on the pass and at most, bumped, and then the goalie hacked the Hawk kid and I threw the flag. Well that caused all sorts of pandemonium. Of course, that meant the backup goalie had to come in and the little red coach was furious. Then, the Hawks scored and it was tied. Then they scored again with 0.5 seconds remaining and won the game.

Just so happens that the president of the lacrosse officials board was at the game - I worked the earlier game with him and I knew he was in the stands, but I didn't know he was from Ithaca. Well I got a good talking to about the slashing call after walking off the field and going into the locker room. The thing that I'm not upset about is they weren't arguing whether or not it was a bad call, they were saying I shouldn't have made that call given the game situation. I didn't fight him on it, just took it. Had I argued, I'd be done for sure. I understand what he is saying, but I mentioned to Frank that I always thought we were supposed to call it the same at the end as the beginning. Not so, I guess. Not sure what's going to happen going forward, but it was not a good feeling. I don't feel upset or angry or anything, just pensive. It WAS a slash, for sure. Just a learning experience I guess. But I'm not certain I'll be able to make that adjustment - I'm just a black & white sort of person.

One full week as a Veggie lover

It's officially one week of not eating any meat and the weight has started to go back down a bit. Not because of eating veggies or anything, but because I was just better about eating in general. I don't expect tomorrow will be as good as we had pizza and ice cream at the church Alpha course tonight, but maybe extra sleep will help. Actually, it seems like it's been more than a week, but it certainly hasn't been as hard to keep doing as I originally thought. Of course, I was also trying to go dairy-free but adding yogurt back into the diet really helped add more protein to the diet, though I pretty much stick to Suggi's flavors. It easy to keep them in the fridge since no one else in the family likes them! Tomorrow, back on the stretching & yoga. I took a couple days off w/ the USSF course all day Saturday & Sunday.

Nick Bottoni Tournament

Garmin Connect - My first time at the tourney and it was swell, though I just could NOT stay out of the way sometimes. One girl ran into me and the ball bounced off me twice. It was crazy. Turns out there weren't enough teams for the boys tourney on Saturday so it was jut today. Bath girls won the title over Addison. And one of the semi-finals was Addison1 vs Addison2. All the games were really good. I was struck by the difference in play between the Corning United team vs the others, especially Bath. The CU team seemed to be playing dump-and-chase, sort of like hockey. The other teams were much more adept at looking for someone to receive a pass, and better touch passing as well. At one point they did a really nice pass back-and-forth to get around a defense, and there was some nice triangle play also. How do you teach that to young kids? It was really impressive, considering.

I was the only ref not wearing pants - didn't get the memo! I wore a new pair of NB sneakers I picked up just a couple hours earlier since all I had otherwise was my black outdoor turf shoes. I didn't do much moving so I could have gotten away with the outdoor ones, but I didn't know. At the end of the match we stayed to help clean up and the concession stand let the leftover hot dogs & pizza go for free.

Since this was a fundraiser, I was shocked that there is no website promoting it. Not even a Facebook page! Someone mentioned that there's a tournament listing site, but no one was sure whether or not this tournament was listed. I mentioned via email that I'd be happy to help with that. I also noticed they had fancy trophies - wonder how much they were & where they got them. At any rate, one meeting in the books for SCHSSA (Steuben County High School Soccer Association). They really need to change that name; nothing in it references who we are: referees & officials.