We Have Another Egregious Robbery From a High School State Championship Game

Apparently, referees were potentially stealing state titles from kids left and right this past weekend. First, there was the terrible call in a New Jersey state title game which resulted in a game-ending, 100-yard fumble return — though it did give the Popeye's Kid from Vine a ring. Then we have this out of Missouri, where Lutheran St. Charles scored a go-ahead touchdown with just a few seconds left in the game.

But count the number of offensive players.

Lutheran ran the play with 12 players and scored, though it should have resulted in a five-yard penalty to make it third down from the Lamar 7-yard line with six seconds left. That's still a pretty easy field goal for the win, but does anyone want to take a guess what happened on the ensuing extra point?

Springfield News-Leader — It's unclear how strong of a kicking game the Cougars had. They made their first three extra points before having one blocked with 8:33 left to keep the game tied at 27 and the extra point following the go-ahead touchdown went wide.

That's right, the kid who should have been attempting a 24-yard field goal with the state championship on the line missed the 19-yard inconsequential extra point. Seems like an important detail! That kid wanted no part of that field goal.

What are we doing here? These refs aren't Little League umpires volunteering, they're getting paid. They're also presumably the best the state has to offer and you can't take a quick look to see if one of the teams is playing 12-on-11 with the state title on the line? Seems like something you'd want to make sure doesn't happen, but maybe that's just me.

Won't someone think of the children?! This is a travesty.