BASKETBALL: SGA, official scoring error leave Trinity girls stumped in GIAA semifinals

Trinity’s Lady Crusaders spent the rest of the afternoon chipping away, but couldn’t catch back up with Southwest Georgia Academy after falling into a slight deficit – due in large part to an inexplicable four-point setback on the scoreboard – during the first half of their state semifinal game Thursday in Tifton. 

The third-seeded Warriors, with some stingy defense and opportune 3-point shooting, were able to outlast a second-half comeback effort to hang on for the 47-40 victory that will put them up against top seed Brentwood Saturday in the AA state championship game. 

Though still defeated outright, the Trinity girls were left with some perplexing what-ifs as their game became the GIAA’s second midweek semifinal in as many days to be affected by scoring issues on the part of game staff. 

The association had already come under scrutiny for an error during Wednesday’s Class A semifinal – also played at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College – that cost Robert Toombs’ girls a win in regulation after a CCA free throw midway through the second half was inadvertently double-counted. 

The teams finished regulation tied at 51, and CCA went on to win by three points in a second overtime. 

Thursday, the controversy originated near the end of the opening quarter, when the scorer’s table failed to correctly account for a set of points scored, and also not scored, in an exchange of baskets. 

With Trinity leading 11-9, Southwest Georgia missed a 3-pointer but was able to corral an offensive rebound and score to tie the game at 11. 

Following a Crusader turnover, SGA took another long 3 in transition. This time, Trinity got the rebound and got a runout fast-break.  

During the breakaway, two additional points were suddenly added to the SGA side of the board, which now showed 13-11, before Brinley Vinson’s layup tied it back up at 13. 

“Nobody scored,” Trinity head coach Lacey Shepherd said. “So we don’t know where the points came from. We are curious, did someone behind the bench say, ‘Hey, we’ve got 13,’ and they just put two points up?” 

The ball remained in play, with no further scoring by either side, for the roughly 45 seconds remaining before coaches, officials, table staff and both teams’ bookkeepers were able to talk things out between quarters. 

“They called them over there, they’re trying to compare and nobody’s matches,” Shepherd said, going on to say that, as best she could reason, a basket by Trinity’s Maddy George had been mistakenly marked down on the line of SGA’s No. 4 by the Warriors’ recorder, and somehow the main bookkeeper as well.  

“That’s where the discrepancy is,” she said. “How the official book got that, I don’t know.” 

Trinity coaches argued that the Lady Warriors had been awarded two points they didn’t score, assuming a simple mistake. But rather than deducting the points from SGA, the operator actually took Vinson’s basket off the board, and left the score 13-11 Southwest Georgia. 

One mistake became two as discussion led to more confusion than clarity, but play resumed at the urging of officials, and GIAA site reps who were eager to keep the afternoon’s four-game itinerary on schedule. 

Shepherd acquiesced, with the assurance that officials would re-assess the situation at halftime. 

The Lady Warriors outscored Trinity 10-8 in the second quarter and went to intermission leading 23-19.

Further debate during the break would not bring about a resolution, as decision makers defaulted to an official game book whose record of the first half mirrored inconsistencies on the scoreboard. Trinity pleas, backed up by video clips, were denied by the GIAA citing NFHS rules that prohibit game footage from being used to change a score after the allowed grace period between a play in question, and the re-start following the next dead ball. 

Though it ultimately didn’t decide the final outcome, the four-point swing did alter the course of the game as the Lady Crusaders were forced to come back from a larger deficit than truly existed.

SGA outscored Trinity 16-13 in the third to increase its lead to 39-32. The Lady Crusaders fought back throughout the final quarter, but trailed by five – which should have been a one-point deficit – with just 30 seconds left. They missed a quick 3, and then had to foul again, leading to two more free throws and the Warriors’ seven-point win. 

“Literally, at the end of the third, we hit a 3, and it would’ve put us up by one, but the scoreboard says we’re down by three. With a minute and a half to go (in the game), we’re down by five and we’re really down by one,” Shepherd said. “It changes the entire dynamic of the way you coach, how the players play and how the other team is playing, all of it.” 

Maddy George was Trinity’s top scorer with 18 points. Vinson had 14 (or 16, had the scoring been correct). Blair Bennett led SGA with 17 and KJ Spann had 11.

Though she doesn’t pin the game’s result entirely on the administrative mishap, Shepherd made clear her disappointment in the handling of the situation, and failure of multiple measures – including not only two extra team ledgers, but a third kept by an alternate ref to corroborate the official score – in place specifically to prevent this type of oversight. 

Team bookkeepers were also denied their typical spots at the big desk, where empty seats were left on either side of the the group including official scorer, P.A. announcer and scoreboard and clock ops. Both were instead relegated to seats on the first row of bleachers next to benches several feet away. 

Video of the sequence also shows SGA’s, who by coincidence was a good bit closer, flipping his folded book from one team’s side to the other, while Trinity’s Katherine Williams has hers spread to view both sides at once. 

Her concerns, upon presenting documentation of the flaw, were also felt to have been largely brushed aside.

“They gave us no communication,” Shepherd said. “They, first of all, would not allow Katherine and their scorekeeper to sit at the table. That was problem No. 1.” 

There’s no way to go back and fully right the wrong, but at a minimum, Shepherd expects steps to be taken to lessen the likelihood that this type of easily correctible mistake alters a postseason game in the future, after this year bringing a disputed end to the seasons of two different teams, one of them Wednesday a rightful winner. 

“Right now, my biggest thing is the GIAA owes us an apology,” she said. “They were wrong, they need to admit they were wrong, and then what are you going to do to correct it? This should never have happened the day before, it shouldn’t have happened the day after and it should never happen again.”