“I’m blind, I’m deaf, I wanna be a ref.”

At the boys soccer game versus Meade County, the assistant referee left at halftime, due to a controversy with the head official.

Coach Mike Brangers made the decision to end the game at halftime. Coach Brangers believed that the safety of his players was in danger if they continued play. This did not count as a forfeit because it was already halftime.

During halftime, one of the assistant referees got angry with the head referee and decided to leave the game. At this point, that left only two referees to cover the entire field. Coach Brangers left it up to the senior team captains to make the decision to stay or leave. One captain was senior Cooper Mahoney. “Colin Shepherd and I were the captains and we overlooked the options we had. We concluded that since we had a district game next, we didn’t want the game to get out of hand, so we decided to leave,” said Mahoney.

The captains also looked at the possibility of someone getting injured or getting a red card (suspending the player for two games). They have three injuries already, so adding another would just hurt the team. This counted as a loss because it was at halftime.

“I feel bad for the kids and the parents because it was a long drive. It was a bad situation, but I tried to make the best of it,” said Coach Brangers.