Five Points for the Scorekeeper

We had the best managers and scorers around on the Lady Vikings basketball squad. They were always ready with Gatorade when you needed it, a towel to dry your sweat or your tears, and an eagle eye when keeping the books. That eagle eye helped us get 5 extra points in a state first round game.

We were playing Temple in 1970’s state tourney. The game was in Fairburn, a long way from Taylor County. We arrived at the game and noticed that Temple had nice looking new uniforms. We hoped it wouldn’t bring them good luck.

At a state tournament game, the official scorer was from some neutral place. During the first quarter, our scorekeeper, Beth Jones, called Coach Carter over to the scorer’s table. She told him that the numbers and players names she received before the game didn’t match for the Temple team. Coach Carter told her to tell the officials, which she did. The officials didn’t want to do anything about it, so Coach Carter mentioned it to them again at the half because the rule book called for a technical for every wrong number. The officials didn’t feel it was Temple’s fault. Then they found out that Beth had gotten the numbers from the Temple scorer, as had the official scorer.

When we returned from the locker room at half time, Coach Carter told us what had happened and called for Judy Riley to go with the officials and shoot the technical fouls.

Picture this: the crowd for both sides sees our player go out to the foul line with the official. Our player Judy shoots free throw after free throw. Points are added to the scoreboard for our side. The score changes from 26-20 to 31-20.

The crowd went crazy. Our fans didn’t know what was going on, but they saw points being added to our score and they liked it. The Temple fans didn’t know either, but they could certainly see it wasn’t to their advantage and they didn’t like it. I think it was the most unusual thing that happened during the years I played.

Judy ended the game with 15 points that night, and the final score was Taylor Co. 51 and Temple 38. She didn’t enjoy very much shooting those technical fouls, but it helped us win the game. One more interesting detail: it was Friday the 13th!