Football: City Section playoff game ended because of darkness at one-yard line

A year after the City Section received criticisim for its controversial decision to remove Narbonne from the girls’ basketball playoffs for wearing pink uniforms (later reversed), there’s more controversy looming.

On Friday, a Division III football playoff game between Marshall and host Manual Arts was halted at 5 p.m. by darkness with Marshall at the one-yard line and seemingly headed for a game-tying touchdown.

Coach Clay Johnston of Marshall said the officials blew the whistle and ended the game in the middle of the final play when Marshall was headed for a touchdown that would have tied the game at 42-42. The officials sprinted off the field and awarded Manual Arts a 42-36 victory.

Johnston said he intends to file a protest on Monday. He said he’s “as certain as the sun comes up tomorrow” that the officials didn’t blow their whistle until “after the ball was snapped.”

“Everybody at the game knows,” Johnston said.

Tony Crittendon, the assigner for officials, said the referee who worked the game insisted the whistle was blown before the final play.

Is NFL TV analyst Mike Pereira available to make a ruling?

Marshall players were crying afterward. Johnston said he would have had no problem if the officials had stopped the game at 5 p.m. under the rules of darkness. But he objected to doing it in the middle of a play.

City Section Commissioner John Aguirre said Saturday that National Federation of State High School Assn. rules don’t allow Marshall to protest.

“You can’t protest officials’ judgment,” he said. “The game is over. If the official determined the whistle blew before the snap of the ball, the whistle blew before the snap. We play the game as the rules dictate.”

The game was supposed to start at 2 p.m. but Marshall’s bus arrived late and the game didn’t start until 2:30 p.m. Manual Arts also was calling timeouts late trying to run out the time before 5 p.m. struck. The game was halted with 4:35 left on the clock in the fourth quarter. If a tie had occurred and the game stopped by darkness, it would have resumed at a later date.

Manual Arts does not have lights.

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