Last week, SNSN Radio broadcasted a boys basketball game between Griswold Wolverines and the Berlin RedCoats.
The game turned out to be a back and forth battle with Berlin being the superior team in the first half, and Griswold in the 2nd half which resulted in a 61-61 tie with 1.8 seconds left on the clock.
Berlin inbounded the ball and got a shot off. The basket went in and the referee counted it stating the shot got off in time before the buzzer sounded.
As a result, there was seemingly no way that the Berlin player got the shot off in time after dribbling, turning, then shooting. The ref’s hightailed it out of the auditorium and I can honestly say that I have never seen a ref leave the court and out the building that quick. Maybe they doubted their call, or the ref that didn’t make the call, didn’t agree? Either way, they booked it out which led to the drama as to whether or not the shot got off in time.
SNSN went back over and over after the game and reviewed the footage of that shot.
After further review, it is determined that the Berlin player DID get the shot off in time where it would seem almost an impossible feat, but to his credit… he sank the basket which gave the Redcoats a 63-61 victory over the Wolverines.
Regardless of what was thought in that moment at Berlin High School, the ref was right, the shot counted and NO, Berlin didn’t get the hometown discount from the referee’s.
At the end of the day, this is a wonderful story if you are to peel back the layers of what led up to the game. Berlin lost their Head Coach, “Coach V”, after a lengthy illness just before Christmas. He had coached the team for 13 years. At the beginning of the game during the pre game announcements, there was a moment of silence of 13 seconds, one for every year that Coach V was the coach. The game was dedicated to his memory.
Were the refs that good? Because that was one of the hardest calls that I have ever seen an official make. Maybe it wasn’t even that. Maybe there were other forces like Coach V looking down on his team.
It doesn’t matter how it happened, and Griswold took the loss, fair and square.
For Berlin… You won a game, but it meant so much more than just a game. For Griswold… it’s a loss. It was a hard loss at the end of the game, but If you are going to take a loss, this is the loss you want.