Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com
UPDATE – For more on this controversy and a very different angle of the play, see our updated story on the call …
By Ray Hamill — There was plenty of controversy at Crusader Field once again on Saturday afternoon, and upon further review it appears as if the home fans had plenty of reason to feel hard done by.
St. Bernard’s lost the game 34-26 to the Fortuna Huskies, a defeat that may drop the Crusaders from a one seed to a three seed for the Division-6 playoffs.
St. Bernard’s head coach Matt Tomlin was furious with the officials after a pass interference penalty was called on the Crusaders on a crucial fourth-down play in the final minute of the game.
St. Bernard’s was trailing by eight and appeared to have finally stopped a Fortuna offense that had been driving for almost seven minutes.
But the officials called a pass interference penalty on the Crusaders, keeping the drive alive and ending the game when the Huskies took a knee on the ensuing play.
The Crusaders likely would have lost the game anyway, and the Huskies deserved their win.
St. Bernard’s would have had to drive almost the entire length of the field to score both a touchdown and a two-point conversion just to force overtime, and that would have been a tall order with just 36 seconds remaining.
But they were denied that opportunity on what looks to be a bad call by the officials.
Video footage suggests SB safety Will Omey gets nothing but the ball on the play.
What was particularly frustrating for Tomlin and St. Bernard’s is that it was the second straight weekend a controversial call has gone against them after an apparent blocked punt was missed by the officials against Eureka a week ago.
The Crusaders would go on to win that game regardless, but Saturday’s loss, Tomlin believes, will see them drop from a one seed to a three seed in the Division-6 bracket, which could potentially cost the Crusaders two playoff games on the North Coast if they were to reach the NCS decider.
“I’m proud of my players,” Tomlin said afterwards. “We overcame a lot of adversity, which was nice, whether that was injuries or mystery penalties.”
Judge for yourself whether the officials made the correct call, or whether it was indeed a “mystery penalty,” although the video footage would suggest it was nothing more than a brilliant play by Omey.
For more on the game, see Huskies appear playoff bound after beating SB …
Categories: Football, Sports, St. Bernard's, Video, Video Highlights
Well the blocked punt wasn’t the wrong call. The punt was blocked, ball went passed the line of scrimmage at which point SB attempted a recovery but was not able to and Eureka recovered and retained possession. If the ball was blocked and remained behind the line of scrimmage no matter what it would have been SB’s ball. That call is only controversial because no one knows the rules..
SB got called for “roughing the kicker”
Interesting description…
Example: it is 4th Down with 9 yards to go for a first down… the ball is snapped to the punter… the punt is blocked and the ball squibs across the line of scrimmage one yard… and is recovered by the punting team…
How is that a first down for the punting team?
The football didn’t go nine yards to the first down marker…
There was no change in possession because the defense never actually took possession…
Ya, that was a jump ball situation…defenders never touched wr until after all 3 players had touched the ball and all fell down together…
Extremely unwarranted and quite frankly a terrible call by side ref…pathetic actually…and the dude who threw the flag assumed that which he could not see because he had a bad angle to view from…
No contact and both defenders were clearly going for the ball. This call illustrates that the referees were looking to flag SB, even when there wasn’t anything there. Back judge should have weighed in so he is culpable too. Fortuna played a good game. The refs played dirty.