In our final match of the semifinals at Lake Superior Regional, the referee called a foul for pinning. This happened around 2:15 in the video located here
The call was made, but when the points were tallied at the end of the match, no foul points were awarded.
We ended up losing the match 112-100. Any thoughts on this situation or why the referee would not have awarded the points or told the official at the end of the match the points should be awarded?
Sorry for the shaky video. It was the only one we had.
It’s possible that he discussed it with other refs and determined that it was not pinning, or that he thought he entered the penalty in his ref panel but hadn’t actually entered it.
In any case, this is the type of incident you want to bring up immediately after the match by standing in the question box. After a few days the refs almost certainly have completely forgotten the incident and all we can provide is speculation, so the chances of finding out what actually happened are pretty slim.
If you watch carefully, he begins swinging his right arm to count, but never gets close to the requisite number of seconds for a pin before the other team backs off. They come back in and he begins to count a second time.
I’m not sure why he waved the flag vertically, but there doesn’t appear to be a pinning penalty there. Like Tanis said, perhaps they conferred and agreed that the other team backed off far enough, or that you followed them away from the wall and negated the pin.
Rule Quote for further discussion:
*An ALLIANCE may not pin an opponent ROBOT for more than five (5) seconds. A ROBOT will be considered pinned until the ROBOTS have separated by at least six (6) ft. The pinning ROBOT(S) must then wait for at least three (3) seconds before attempting to pin the same ROBOT again. Pinning is transitive through other objects.
Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL
If the pinned ROBOT chases the pinning ROBOT upon retreat, the pinning ROBOT will not be penalized per G29, and the pin will be considered complete.*
The entire regional the referees were consistant in how they called pinning. They would hold up the flag, do a 5 count with their other arm, and if they reached 5 give a penalty. He only reached 2.
You can watch the robot that he started to call the pinning on. It was only pinned for maybe 1.5 seconds.
When we were the eighth seed playing the number one seed in the quarter finals at Gull Lake we lost by eight points. It was our third match against them and it was so close. One of the assists in our first cycle was not registered. After reviewing the video multiple times you can see the ref touch the screen because we successfully made the assist, but it did not light up the lights or count on our cycle score.
Yea, that’s in no way a pin. The only thing I can think of is the ref didn’t think the red robot backed off enough, but the blue robot had room to get away, and chased the red robot back a little. But I can say in my 5 years of reffing that I would have never called that a penalty.
In previous years, I believe the recommended way to count a pin was to wave the flag slowly. That’s not the case now, but maybe that’s what he was trying to do? (Not able to watch the video now…)
For that past couple years, and this year too, you’re supposed to point at the robot with one hand, and do a “tomahawk” chop with the other hand every second until you reach 5. And if the pinning stops in time, you give the baseball “safe” signal. No action should be done with the flag either.
Even though the signals that referee performed we not technically correct, everyone recognized that he was counting for a pin. I’m still trying to figure out why in the world it would have been called though.