[BigBen]

We had a qualifying match this last weekend against one of the two undefeated (and VERY strong robot) team where one of our alliance 3 assist high goals was not included in the final score. Watching the replay the scoreboard showed 10 points added to the score at the time the goal happened, then it immediately dropped back to the previous score. Those 40 points never made it back onto the scoreboard.

When they announced the final score, we had won by 13 points, big cheers all around because our alliance was not expected to be able to beat them. Then there was a protest by the opposing alliance that a foul had not been counted, which was true and valid due to a data entry station malfunction, they were credited with 20 points and the win and the final score announced a second time. When our alliance questioned the rescoring of the game after the final score had been announced, we were told it was corrected due to the malfunction.

At this time our team members on the field were told by spectators that there was also a scoring error where an entire scoring cycle for our alliance was dropped and they again went to the ? asking for the scoring to be checked again, and were told that they had already checked the score, that we had received all of the assist points and that they couldn't go back and change it anyway since the final score had been announced. Frustrating to no end that the video we had within 3 minutes of the end of the match clearly showed the scoring error, but nothing we could do about it without antagonizing the judge any further. Tough pill to swallow as that one outcome would have greatly changed the team statistics and the whole alliance selection process. We noticed this type of scoring error several more times throughout the rest of the qualifying matches and even in the tournament, but in those matches I believe the error was corrected either before the final score or with the alliance going to the ? when they were made aware of the error.

I am sure we didn't get the consideration due to the multiple times questioning of the final score, even though it was for different reasons and actually very valid. I can imagine though what it must be like from the judges/refs perspective, I don't know if I could do as well as they were doing under the circumstances and overall I think they did an excellent job and called it as fair as they could.

I agree with some of the above posts that the refs are just overtaxed this year. The number of times we have seen penalties not called simply because the ref was focused on the ball possession/field zone combos and data entry into the computer is ridiculous. Robots are getting pinned for much longer than 5 seconds because they don't back off until the ref starts visibly counting, which sometimes happened after 10 seconds of pin because they were looking elsewhere. The other major issue is the lighting of the pillar being controlled by an official, that sometimes has not lit the pillar for upwards of 20 seconds after a goal was scored. Some of these scoring cycles are very quick and those seconds matter. With the exception of one match that was replayed when the pillar didn't light quickly enough, even though it could be argued that in that specific case would not likely have had an effect on that score due to a large score differential, none of the matches where it could have really impacted the original game were replayed. Granted that is most likely due to the affected alliances not asking the right questions to the judges in protest, but come on, it really shouldn't come down to that.

Personally, I think something as simple as one more official per team focusing on the ball, keeping track of just the assists/scoring and lighting of the pillar when the score happens, to allow the refs to do their job of policing the field would have stopped many of the issues we have seen over the last few weeks of competitions.