[Scott Duhaime]

First I would like to bring up the rules. In section 9.2 General Match Rules GM3 starts "ABSOLUTELY NO REMATCHES WILL BE AWARDED. FIRST reserves the right to re-play a match due to obvious catastrophic failure of FIRST-provided field materials or human error." The human error brings the point here. I don't think that there is no human error if the FIRST personal trigger the mat, but was it a catastrophic failure? I don't think so, it would be like a sports team asking for a rematch because they scored too many times. Definitely some thing was not right however the party that was negatively affected (in this case 902 - 494 - 226) should have the say as to a rematch. In football (one example ) if their is a pentaly on a play but the negatively affected team still gets a touchdown they have the option of taking the points or accepting the pentaly, it should be the same here. As for who step on the mat the way I saw it team 85's human player step on the mat when the FIRST personal came to close the gate and activated their own auto mode.

It should also be noted that 378 did not engage their auto mode in the first match but did in the second. This being different should not have allowed to happen since 494 auto modes did not work correctly and they were not allowed to fix it. the replay of the auto mode should have been identicle except that 85 was not engaged.

The rematch had no way of being fair after the first score was annouced. There was no way for 494 and 902 to be excited and perform their best after earning their way into the finals and having it ripped away from them, but 378 and 85 were give a second chance and most certianly were "pumped up" for the match.

Good job 494 and 902 I know we would of gone far.