Cougars drop to 13-7 on the season after 53-45 loss to Washington Township

The Cougars had another close game with a division opponent today, and for the second time this season, East fell to Washington Township. Honestly, not a lot can be said about the game as far as how both teams played. Neither team truly outplayed the other; in fact for most of the game, the difference between both teams was two points, with East and Twp. trading the lead numerous times throughout the game. The quarter by quarter scores truly shows just how even a match this game was. After one quarter, the game was tied 14-14. At half, the Cougars were up 4. After the third quarter, Twp. led by two. And after a few questionable officiating calls, Twp. ending up winning by eight, even though the majority of the fourth quarter was a 2-3 point game.

Here is East's stat line for the game:

Chris Santo- 33 points, 12/14 from the free throw line, 12 rebounds

Marc Sclessel- 5 points, 6 rebounds

Jake Gurkin- 2 points, 8 rebounds

Ben Gerstein- 4 assists

Seth Friedman- 5 points, 8 assists

In my mind (and I would bet that almost everyone at the game feels the way I do), the story of this game was the officiating crew. To be fair, the officials affected the outcome of the game for both teams way more than officials should. Numerous calls were missed and unnecessary calls were made. It was just a poor showing for the officiating crew today. Being that I am a reporter, it is my job to write without bias in my articles. But because I am a diehard East basketball fan, I am going to speak as a fan instead of a reporter for this one occasion. And because most, if not all, of the readers of this blog are East fans, I hope this is not a problem for anyone.

Here are the calls (or lack of calls) that stood out as bad officiating in my mind:

-Some of the calls the officiating crew made and failed to make during the game were absolutely ridiculous. Twice

during the game (and I am going to leave opposing players' names out of this post), a Twp. player hung on the rim for a significant amount of time. I will admit that I am not an expert when it comes to rules in basketball, but I do know that hanging on the rim is not allowed and doing so should result in a technical foul call. Both times the Twp. player hung on the rim, no technical foul was called at all. I wonder if a foul would even have been called if the player had broken the basket after hanging on the rim.

-After a missed shot in the first half, a Twp. player stormed up the court and absolutely smacked Chris Santo in the shoulder for no apparent reason. Santo had rebounded the ball and began dribbling up court when the player, apparently out of anger, pulled his arm above his head a made a full swing at Santo's arm. No foul was called.

-Later on, a Twp. player basically headlocked Marc Schlessel. Schlessel was in position to rebound the ball, and out of nowhere, the Twp. player brought Schlessel to the ground. No foul was called.

-Finally, at the end of the game, East was down three with seconds to go in the game. A Twp. player rebounded the ball, and Chris Santo tried to either grab the ball from the Twp. player or foul him to stop the clock. Santo was called for a flagrant foul (or possibly intentional foul), giving Twp. two foul shots and possession, putting the game out of reach for the Cougars. Everyone in the crowd was shocked with the call- there was definitely a foul on the play, but there is no way that the foul was worthy of a flagrant foul call, as Santo was clearly trying to steal the ball from the Twp. rebounder.

*On a positive note, before the game Chris Santo received a commemorative basketball for breaking the all- time scoring record at East. Congratulations once again to Chris for his record!