Referees, Wrestling & 29 In A Row -
posted by: Josh

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• A lot of people have complained about the referees and how sure they are that there are officials showing tremendous bias. I know the Tim Donaghy situation made us all think twice about officiating, but that's not fair. One bad egg doesn't mean that every controversial call was made with bias.

• How about the Howard Payne women's basketball team? The Lady Jackets completed a perfect 33-0 season on Saturday night, beating Messiah in the Division III championship game, 68-54. Perfect seasons are hard to come by at any level, so the D-III champs deserve major kudos.

• Washington-St. Louis ended Amherst's bid to win a second consecutive men's basketball title, as the Bears walloped the Lord Jeffs on Saturday, 90-68. Troy Ruths, who wrote a guest blog for the Double-A Zone last year, was named the tournament's most outstanding player.

• The country's top two teams made it to the Division III Men's Ice Hockey Championship, and it was No. 1 that left with the hardware. Top-ranked St. Norbert beat No. 2 Plattsburgh State, 2-0, to win its first national title. St. Norbert goalie Kyle Jones made 32 saves for his 25th career shutout.

• Although the men's program suffered a championship-game loss, it was a different story for the Plattsburgh State women, which beat Manhattanville, 3-2, to win their second straight Division III crown on Saturday night.

• In Division I women's action, Minnesota-Duluth beat Wisconsin, 4-0, to win its first national title in five years. Sophomore goalie Kim Martin was named most valuable player of the 2008 Women's Frozen Four.

• Kenyon joined its women's program with another Division III swimming title, winning its 29th consecutive championship in the pool this weekend. Kenyon swimmers won nine of the 20 events.

Arizona snapped Auburn's dominance at the Division I Women's Swimming Championship, keeping the Tigers from winning their sixth title in seven years. Arizona is just the seventh team to ever win a national championship in the sport. Florida's Caroline Burckle broke an 18-year-old meet record in the 500-yard freestyle, winning in 4 minutes, 33.60 seconds. Burckle broke the previous mark set in 1990 by four-time Olympic gold medalist Janet Evans.

• Katie Thomas wrote a nice piece in the New York Times this weekend, telling a story about Noel and Angelina Andreoni, who have spent the past seven years traveling the world spreading their love of basketball and photography.

• The Division I Wrestling Championships aired on ESPN Saturday night and St. Louis' Scottrade Center was packed with passionate fans. I watched the 184-pound battle between Ohio State's Mike Pucillo and Iowa State's Jake Varner. After wrestling for more than 10 minutes, Pucillo won the 3-3 match via tiebreaker. Iowa won its 21st national title and first since 2000.

Comments

When are you going to get good referees for important games who don't show bias in their calls? I'm specfically citing the UCLA-Texas A&M game where a foul should have been called on UCLA in the final seconds. If you want a picture of it it's all over the internet. The refs didn't want to upset the 17,000 UCLA fans in attendance.

posted by: Ed Scanlon | 03/24/08

When will referees let the players decide the outcome of games? Too often I see refs making marginal calls at best late in games that affect the outcome. It seems to me the refs want to be too big of a part of the games. My view of a referees job is to keep the game in order and let the players play and decide the outcome.

posted by: Don DiVanni | 03/24/08

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