Caledonian Laments Poor Officiating

Despite an overwhelming 49-21 sledgehammering of Bloomfield Hills Lahser at the hands of Caledonia in the Division 3 Michigan State Quarterfinals, some fans of the Caledonia Fighting Scots weren't too thrilled with every performance on the field.

"Our kids played a whale of a ballgame," says Lon Gascho, father of Luke Gascho, a safety for the Fighting Scots. "But, seeing the zebras perform like this so late in the season with so much on the line is unconscionable," added Gascho, looking up the word unconscionable in the thesaurus under "bad."

"We are ahead 49-0 at the half and maybe 49-7 when the play in question occurred. Lahser is way off side, has three people in motion, not enough guys on the line, and the play clock had expired, but the refs don't notice that sort of stuff," said Gascho, rolling his eyes.

"Then like four linemen from Lahser start making a dash downfield, illegally I might add, so Luke figures it is a run. But after running toward the line the Lahser QB sees Luke closing on him, he stops and sidearm hurls the football badly off his back foot toward the secondary. Luke nearly knocked down the pass on the release even."

"Then Luke had to turn and head for the receiver but a couple steps away he got clipped. Luke managed to maintain his balance, probably because of superior paternal genetics, and was able to get his arm up in time to beautifully knock down the pass. The knock down was clean, completely clean, certifiably clean, but the force of the clip sent Luke into the receiver and that is what got flagged."

"I mean, here we have four or five legitimate should-have-been-called penalties against Lahser on that one play, but the only thing that gets called is the beautiful play by Luke. The whole Caledonia section of fans was booing and throwing rotton fruit. Some guy even tossed a dead carp on the 50," said Gascho, wiping and smelling his hand. "It was a horrible call. A couple of us were even thinking about heading to East Lansing to set a couch on fire."

Despite the officiating controversy, Gascho and those of his family that still don't mind to be seen with him, will be heading to Ford Field this upcoming Saturday for the Division 3 finals against 13-0 Haslett. Information on the upcoming game is on the MHSAA website.

"Oh, and Jane Bos, that tart of a football writer for the GR Press is a big EGR fan and really has never given Cal the respect we deserve."