This story was originally published by Maine Basketball Rankings.
It’s not often that we have to take a result off the board, but that’s the word that came down Wednesday afternoon from Hermon.
Hermon lost in the 8th inning when Hampden’s ghost runner scored the only run of the game on a bases-loaded bunt.
Only, they weren’t supposed to have a ghost runner in the 8th inning. The ghost runner doesn’t kick in until the 10th inning (also: why are we doing a ghost runner at all?) and so somewhere between everyone leaving the game Tuesday night with the knowledge Hampden won and about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, the MPA determined the game needs to be replayed from the 8th inning on.
Does this impact who makes the tournament? Nope.
So the next question is: if this mistake impacted both teams equally, why do we need to replay the game from the error? It’s a fair question. There’s precedent from earlier this year. The Medomak and Leavitt girls had to replay the last couple minutes of a game because of a clock issue, even though the result was essentially determined. But essentially determined is different from actually determined and this game was actually determined. The umps walked off the field and everyone went home.
From the bulletin:
10. Maine has no protest rule or option. If a rule interpretation or application is in question, the issue must be discussed and resolved before resumption of play. Coaches raising a question must have a rule book and/or bulletin in their possession and make specific reference to the rule at issue.
It wasn’t brought up before the resumption of play. We know that because the Ticket would have noticed that as they were broadcasting the game and they didn’t. So I’m not really sure why we’re replaying a result that went final.
But we are!
Even beyond the extra ghost runner, the officials didn’t do themselves any favors.
That’s a rough look. You’ve gotta pick safe or out and stick with it. You can’t waffle on a walk-off squeeze play, especially after you screwed up something as simple as which inning to start using the ghost runner.
It’s no wonder they’re using different officials to finish out the game.
Note: Hampden won resumed game on Thursday 1-0.
