Lacrosse Forums

In another thread, I posted a question that I think might be worth its own thread:

A1 has the ball and is running toward the goal when he is slashed by B1 and the officials throw a flag for the slash. Under what circumstances does B1 not serve penalty time for the slash?

1) (Edited) Will let someone else try and get it. Hopefully no one read mine yet.

2) B1 throws a punch and is ejected before he goes to serve the slash time.

3) There are 2 minutes left in the game and B1 also receives a 3 minute USC penalty before going to the box.

R=Referee
U1=Umpire1
4) R comes over to U1 and tells him it wasn't a slash, over rules him and waves the flag off.

5) B1 is injured during play and has to leave the field to recieve medical treatment.

6) The calling official forgets what number slashed and makes the inhome serve it, the inhome not being B1.




How'd I do?

Pretty darn well. I was mostly thinking your first answer, but you have come up with a much more exhaustive list.

However, I'd rather you didn't even bring up (7), since--even though you qualified it was modified rules--there's going to be someone who thinks that's the rule because they "read it somewhere." Just to be clear, guys: under NCAA and NFHS rules, goalies serve ALL their own penalties.

Good job, Snake~eyes.

Well they were mostly jokes, I removed 1 so someone else can answer(guess). I took away 7 so that no one will get confused. ;)

1. The game is suspended (weather, atomic bomb, etc.)
2. The official calls the wrong player for the slash.
3. B1 goes crazy and commits ritual seppuku. (That might fall under Snake~eyes' #5, though)
4. B1 is a Jedi, and uses his Jedi Mind Tricks.
5. A1 scores a game-winning goal (it's overtime)

Regarding Snake-Eyes answers--I don't believe any of them are exculpatory for B1 in terms of serving penalty time for the slash. My reasoning is as follows:

2) B1 throws a punch and is ejected before he goes to serve the slash time.

The in-home has to serve his penalties for him, leaving team B a man down. NFHS 7-2.5 states that penalties may be served consecutively, with non-releasable time [served] first and releasable time second. In this case, the in-home serves BOTH the USC and slashing penalties, in that order.

3) There are 2 minutes left in the game and B1 also receives a 3 minute USC penalty before going to the box.

He is penalized for the slash (see 7-2.5 above). However, time expires prior to enforcement.

4) Ref comes over to U1 and tells him it wasn't a slash, overrules him and waves the flag off.

It is NO longer a slash by definition, as it was waived off.

5) B1 is injured during play and has to leave the field to recieve medical treatment.

The in-home has to serve his penalty for him. That is, if B1 is removed due to injury, his penalty must still be served. His team will be a man down for 1 minute, unless a goal is scored prior to the minute expiring.

6) The calling official forgets what number slashed and makes the in-home serve it, the in-home not being B1.

The penalty is still being served; I don't believe this is in the spirit of the question.


Regarding Senor_K's answers:

1. The game is suspended (weather, atomic bomb, etc.).

When/if the game restarts, the penalty will be assessed.

2. The official calls the wrong player for the slash.

The penalty is still being served; I don't believe this is in the spirit of the question.

3. B1 goes crazy and commits ritual seppuku. (That might fall under Snake~eyes' #5, though).

What is seppuka???

4. B1 is a Jedi, and uses his Jedi Mind Tricks.

No written comment about THIS one, Senor!

5. A1 scores a game-winning goal (it's overtime).
Most valid of the bunch.

CoachRob, I don't agree with any of your questions. B1 would not serve the penalty time in any of my scenarios, although someone else might. As for your number 4 answer, he got slashed, just didn't get called.

Also, if you ejected B1, would you make the inhome serve it? I'm just curious because I would not.

I understand what you're saying. My point is that by the tone of the question, I feel LaxRef is talking about a scenario where B1 HAS committed a slash, yet through some rule the slash does not mandate any penalty time be served. (See "YOU make the call" for an example where a technical foul w/o possession causes a player to serve penalty time; a rare bird, but an actual case scenario.)

In your cases, the time IS being served, just by somebody else. A surrogate serving time still leaves team B a man down. I think that is what the question (should be) asking. As for waiving off a slash, it isn't a slash any longer, so of course he doesn't serve time since he did NOT commit a slash as determined by the ref. A flag picked up is no flag at all.

Why don't you agree with #2? You get two penalties to be served consecutively any time you commit two time-serving penalties.

In #3, he is sent off and is mandated to serve the penalty time for the slash. The fact the clock runs out does not mitigate that. You could say that a nuclear explosion went off and everybody was killed. Would that mean he didn't serve his penalty? I guess so in the strictest sense of the word. But he WAS sent off with the intention to SERVE the time. Again, I don't think that is what LaxRef was, or should be, asking. Any rule can be changed by extraordinary circumstances or penalty cut short by the end of a game.

For #5, just because he is injured does not release his team from serving the penalty time. If he were shot, I suppose he ALSO could not serve his penalty. But should the game go on, his team MUST designate a player to serve his penalty time. To not do so does not give offended team A any advantage resulting from the slashing that was perpetrated against them.

And yes, if a player is ejected, the in-home MUST serve the penalty time for the ejected player. The player ejected forces his team to be down a man for 3 non-releasable minutes. Only AFTER that 3-minute period of time has been served may he be replaced. Since you must have 10 players on the field of play (actual playing field PLUS the penalty area), that leaves nine on the field, and one needing to be in the penalty area. This MUST be the in-home as he is designated for this expressed purpose. You'd get an earful from any coach if you ejected an opponent, but did not force his team to play short for at least three minutes.


I think that what this gets down to is that LaxRef snuck a sneaky question in and I think is not instructive, as he almost always is. No offense LaxRef, but this was a devil of a question. I like the technical foul question, but not this one.

Of course, I don't know what your #1 was, and perhaps it is a case where an actual slash does NOT require ANY memer of team B to serve time. If so, I'd love to know what it is.

ritual suicide basically. its the practice of killing yourself because you have dishonored your family or name or are disgraced or something along those lines. practiced by the samurai i think.

According to NCAA Rule 5-12:

I read this to mean if a player has a slash and an expulsion foul, the player serves the 3:00 NR, then he is suspended from the game and the in-home serves the slash penalty. It would actually be MORE of a penalty to have the in-home serve it since the penalized team would have fewer men available, but I don't think that's how it's written.

Of course, it's a minor point, so I expect enforcement varies wildly.

Basically, yeah. But the way it was worded admits Snake~eyes' interpretation.

This was the answer I thought was least appropriate, but he was admittedly joking with some of his answers. The implication is that if the case states there is a flag down for a slash, it's going to be ruled a slash and not overruled. Otherwise, every A.R. in the book would have to include a statement "(1) If the flag is overruled by another official, do not assess a penalty."

This was kind of the point: since you know all personal fouls serve penalty time, you have to think of something that could trump that.

Do you have a rule cite on this? I can't find anything to contradict my earlier post that says the expelled player serves the penalty and THEN is suspended from the game.

Well, sure, they can't all be instructive. A trick question now and again is good for the soul. The point is that since you know all personal fouls have to serve penalty time, you have to think outside the box a little bit, and the question was worded carefully to state that B1 does "not serve penalty time." Of course, this admitted as possible some of Snake~eyes' answers.

The most obvious case is what Snake~eyes gave as his first answer: before the whistle blows to end the flag-down, time expires and one team or the other is leading. This is similar to the case of a goal being scored on the flag-down situation in overtime.

Originally Posted by CoachRob:
And yes, if a player is ejected, the in-home MUST serve the penalty time for the ejected player.

Do you have a rule cite on this? I can't find anything to contradict my earlier post that says the expelled player serves the penalty and THEN is suspended from the game.

I recall a bulletin stating that any expelled player is to be removed from the field and sent out of the player's bench area (to the school bus or locker room) so long as there is a supervising school official available to accompany the removed player. Otherwise, he is to remain on the bench and not participate in any team activities for the duration of the match. In such a case, the in-home would be designated to serve his penalty time.

The logic is that for an expulsion, the player has committed such a grievous act that to keep him near the other players is unwarranted and likely to incite acts of retribution by the other team, or the expelled player may continue his poor behavior and place other players at risk. So, get him OUT of the field area and designate the in-home as his surrogate in the penalty area.

If you expel a player for fighting, do you want this kid kneeling in the box, closer to the other team than his teammates or coaches are? Does that make ANY sense?


LaxRef wrote:
Otherwise, every A.R. in the book would have to include a statement "(1) If the flag is overruled by another official, do not assess a penalty."

This IS stated. 7-13: When an...official makes a mistake...that official shall promptly correct the mistake. The implication is that in all cases, any mistake should be overturned and the game restored to the pre-mistake situation. That would mean a goal may need to be disallowed, a player returned to the field, etc.

I'm familiar with the bulletin you cite. However, the rule I quoted specifically say that the player serves a 3:00 NR penalty and THEN is suspended for the remainder of the game. I can't see a good reason for doing it this way--I'd rather see the in-home serve it--but I don't see anything in the rules that support this. Can you find anything that says the player serves expulsions fouls.

Uh, yeah. I'm not arguing that. What I'm saying is that if Snake~eyes answer is a valid answer to a rules question, then it should be included in ALL of the A.R.s. But we don't include "unless the flag was a mistake" in all the A.R.s, so we shouldn't include it in all of our quiz answers, either. But, as I said, I think he was mostly joking with that answer.

Okay, since CoachRob was unhappy with my question, here's a follow-up question that is a better example. The answer is NOT one of the ones that has already been given for the previous question.

Name a game situation in which a specific player from team A commits a personal foul, the player is correctly identified by the official calling the penalty, but the player committing the foul does NOT serve the penalty.

It's still a little bit of a trick question, but it's also an important officiating point if you want to enforce the rules as written.

If B1 is ejcted the inhome is not going to have to serve the time, someone else can take a knee in the box for him. By putting the inhome in the box you double penalize a team.

I'm not sure I follow. Why does putting the in-home in the box double-penalize a team? Now, I can see why making someone serve the 3:00 penalty for the ejected player double-penalizes them (they have one fewer person available for subbing during that 3:00), but what makes the in-home serving it a double penalty (other than the fact that he is a starter).

I don’t understand it either, LaxRef. I don’t know how Snake feels it is double penalizing the team who had the player ejected.

However, it does bring up an interesting issue. By NFHS rule 7-4: If a penalty is called against a team when no definite player is involved or when the penalty is against someone other than a player in the game, the official shall select the in-home and assess the penalty time.

I had always assumed that a penalty would be served by the in-home when the player who committed the foul is unavailable to serve the penalty. However, as I read the rule more closely, that is NOT the case.

I suppose the coach may select ANY player to serve the penalty, and it does not default to the in-home. Having said that, I don’t think it would be fair to have a starter ejected and allow the coach to select the worst player to sit out the penalty for the player. I would think the ref would select the in-home to serve the penalty time, but the rules do not state that the ref has the authority to do so.

I’m not really sure HOW the player to serve the penalty is selected, to be honest!!!

LaxRef,
What is the answer to this one? Other than an overtime goal or the player being expelled and thus another player serving the penalty time FOR him (and as we have found out, that player does NOT have to be the in-home), I don't know the answer.

The real answer is that the flag down was blown dead with no time left on the clock and the score wasn't tied. That was my #1 answer that I edited to keep you guys guessin.

When I have had to eject players in the past, last year I had 2 ejections, one was a double ejection because of a fight. I told the coach to put a player in the box and take a knee. My reason being, the kid who was ejected should be serving the time, if you make the inhome serve it you are penalizing two players, so I let the coach pick someone to "represent" him in the box. That's kind of what I meant by double penalizing.

Cheap. VERY stinkin' cheap!

I suppose I need to add that the game is not yet over when the whistle blows this time!

I'll give Snake~eyes and CoachRob a few hours to see if they can figure this one out, and then I'll post may answer. This time I don't think I'm really asking so much of a trick question, just asking about a rule that isn't so well-known (and probably often enforced incorrectly).

LaxRef,

I have done a review of the case scenarios and can find NO case of a personal foul being excused. For instance, when a personal foul is committed by B1, player B1 is to be sent to the penalty area. There is nothing any other member of team B can do that would eliminate B1's foul. There are OTHER fouls that B1 can commit that would remove HIM from play, thereby forcing another teammate to serve the penalty FOR B1.

Now, we need to look to team A. Is there something team A can do that would eliminate the need for B1 to serve his penalty? A simultaneous foul by team A would not do that as BOTH team's players need to serve time. If team A commits a penalty BEFORE B1, B1 must still serve his penalty time.

So, I just don't know of any case other than the game has ended.

Snake is smarter than I am, maybe he knows the answer.

I know what it is. Atleast I can think of a scenario where this would happen and falls under LaxRef's criteria. Come on CoachRob, think about it.

1) A1 in the crease
2) B1 (D) slash A1 (middie) over center line
3) ref doesn't see it

I said you're smarter than I am. I simply don't know what would obviate the need to serve time for a personal foul. Even if committed during a dead ball, you still have to serve time.

This is why I'm COACHrob and not REFrob.

Can you give me a hint maybe?

In the scenario I'm thinking; player A1 does foul, he does not serve the penalty time, but someone else does.

Then you are saying it is a player who is available to serve it, but someone does in his stead. So in one possible scenario, A1 is on the sideline, where he maligns the official, but the official does not know exactly who yelled out the "f" word, and slaps the in-home with the penalty.

But this violates LaxRef's claim that it is a PF against a KNOWN player.

The only time player A1 has somebody ELSE serve HIS penalty time that I am aware of is when:
1) A1 is unavailable (injured, ejected); or
2) A1 commits the foul, but is not identified as the perpetrator by the officials.

I can think of no other cases where A1 is KNOWN to commit the foul, but A1 has a teammate serve his time for him.

So, once again, I give up. But let it be known Snake and Lax...this had BETTER be a REAL rule that is not some freak of nature that nobody ever sees!!!

NCAA Rule 7-2 states:

Thus, a bench USC personal foul is served by the in-home even if the officials know the particular player that committed the USC. Obviously, if it was a coach, the in-home would have to serve, but this A.R. says the same is true for a player. Perhaps they want the penalty to be a little stiffer, with a starter having to serve.

This is NCAA only. I don't feel bad that I didn't know it.

NFHS is the same. But anyways this was the case I was thinking of so for me!

I TOLD you that you were smarter than I am Snake. Right there in the NFHS case scenarios is 7-2.F, which is essentially the exact same case as the NCAA A.R.

You know, now that I've read it for the ump-teenth time, I notice that ANY bench foul (against the coach, a substitute, or non-player) is served by the in-home according to NFHS Rule 7-4 (EXCLUDING a foul called on a player in the penalty area, in which case the penalty time is added to his remaining penalty time). The penalty gets ASSESSED in the scorebook against the player on the bench who got the penalty, but the in-home is the player who gets sent to the box. The player who it was ASSESSED against cannot enter the game until the in-home has served the penalty time, so in essence, BOTH players are excluded from play until the penalty has been served. WOW!!

Jeepers, that seems a little unfair, don't you think? If the ref identifies A2 as the maligner, and A2's name gets written down in the scorer's book as the maligner, why do they put the in-home in the box? I guess because he's a starter and it is more severe that way. But still...

Which is pretty important under NFHS rules, since your second USC gets you ejected. I'd hate to see the poor in-home getting ejected and suspended all the time because people on the bench kept getting USCs.

As I understand it, the in-home SERVES penalties, but never gets them ASSESSED against him in the book. Otherwise, he runs a real risk of fouling out if he serves 5 personal fouls for misbehaving teammates/coaches. So, although he SITS for the foul, he doesn't get a black mark on his record. At least, that's what I was taught...

True LaxRef/Snake?

In theory, yes, that's correct. In practice, I doubt all of the scorekeepers do that correctly.

Well when you have a bench foul or penatly against the coach do you say White 18 USC 1 minute, if 18 is the inhome. If I were to assess the penalty against a specific player on the bench. I would say White 7 USC 1 minute, inhome will serve.

Snake you are correct. That is you tell the scorer who the foul is on and then if the In-Home is serving.

Coach Rob you are correct. If the In-Home is serving a foul for another person who cannot serve due to ejection or injury, that penalty time is not to be assigned to the inhome for the five foul rule. That person if they should serve five personal fouls for any other teammate(s) is NOT disqualified. For the disqualification to occur there must be five personal fouls on that player.

The expulsion foul for fighting is an exception to this, and the difference is that one is called a disqualification, while the other (fighting) is an expulsion.
Common sense also dictates that if you have two or more players who were just fighting: Why would you put them in the penalty box (with nobody to stop them from re-starting the fight) for three minutes, and on release have them leave the playing area? This has to be the reason the In-Home is to serve the penalties.


The NFHS rule book also differentiates Unsportsmanlike Conduct fouls. Where any one player, coach or team personnell who receives two Unsportsmanlike Conduct fouls is immediately ejected.

Re: ejection above: it's two non-releasable USC penalties on the same person in Federation play.

My point exactly. When an expulsion occurs, the in-home has to serve it since the expelled player must be removed immediately from the field. Why incite more violence by putting the two thugs next to each other?

Not that I don't think this is a good idea, but do you have a rule cite for this? I couldn't find anything in NCAA rules that comes right out and says this. In fact, the rule says:

which implies that they serve and THEN they are expelled.