SEASON COMES TO ABRUPT END Plymouth-NorthWood 1-1 (1-1)OT/Plymouth wins PK shootout

The Panthers went ahead on a 30th minute free kick by Taylor Wegmiller but the Rockies' equalizer came only 5 minutes later. A controversial goal at that however. A high ball in the box enters the far goal box area where it is cleared off the line by Carter Dyksen. The AR raises his flag and says the ball went in the goal which turns a cleared ball (both Carter Dyksen and Kyle swear it never went over the line) into a goal. The game had already started off chippy. Taylor got whacked hard in the first minute, a foul, in my mind that warranted a card (red even maybe?). And even though we should have put the game away, we never got any breaks. Officiating was no where to be found, hand balls weren't called, fouls in the box were not noticed. It was as if the bus from the nursing home had dropped off their worst patient and gave him a referee shirt and told him that he would be picked up again in a couple of hours. He had no control of the game, called hardly anything and didn't seem to have a real grasp on the game. After regulation, the score was 1-1 which meant the game needed to go into OT. After OT (2 x 5 min, but more about this later), the score was still tied and it was time go to a PK shoot out. Unfortunately the PK shootout didn't give us the result we wanted, even though Kyle got his hand on two pk's. Winning on PK's is exciting, losing on PK's just really sucks. According to the IHSAA website, OT consists of two (2) 7 minute halves without time in between. Concord played Goshen and that game went into OT last night; they played 2x 10 minutes. So do any of these referees even have a clue?????? What is it; 2x5, 2x7 or 2x 10 minutes? Overall I believe that the officiating this year was worse then I have ever seen it. Good referees are hard to find and some of them resort to threats as soon as a player or coach questions them. The season itself was a good one, our record of 8-8-2 does not indicate how good. Consider this: 7 losses on one goal difference. One of those (against Northridge)probably should have been 2-1 in our advantage (Clay's goal taken away vs. N'ridge getting a PK). We could and should have gotten a better result versus Bremen and Wawasee and you see that some of these results that do not seem too significant at the time, catch up with the team and its record at the end of the season. This group of seniors was great (as I have mentioned before in my blog). And many of them occupied crucial positions on the team, positions that will be tough to fill next year. Considering we had only 26 players in the program (and most of the time only 24 available with some of them going both JV/V)I think we performed very well. Thanks to all the parents for helping out with the food, drinks and snacks. Thanks to Bruce and Lindy for helping with the video, Lindy also for the Kyle Cam and pictures; the Wegmillers, Seitzes, Taylors and Julie for helping out at Senior Night (food, banners, pictures etc) and I am sure I am missing some people. Maggie for doing the booth, Ryan for another great year of announcing.