In the last 24 hours, a kerfuffle has been building around an incident in a lacrosse game between Maryland and Johns Hopkins.
That shouldn’t be unusual: the men’s teams representing the two schools have played more than 100 times. But the women’s side of the rivalry has been completely one-sided with Maryland winning all 24 games.
But the 25th could have been different but for a goal scored by Shaylan Ahearn which tied the game at 11. It was a free position from the 4 o’clock hashmark, one which bounced off the post, off the crossbar and out of the goal cage.
Slow-motion replay seemed to show that no goal should have been awarded by the umpiring crew.
And the thing is, there are experimental rules in place to allow for coaches to make two video replay challenges per half. But that’s only happening in a limited number of conferences this year.
The Big Ten, however, is not one of those conference.
Yep, the Big Ten, a cash-making machine in many sports and a leader in women’s lacrosse with the likes of Maryland and Northwestern as perennial contenders, did not adopt video assisted review.
Given the fact that Kelly Amonte-Hiller is one of the seven coaches in the conference, it is befuddling. Amonte-Hiller has been incredibly forward-thinking when it comes to the game of lacrosse and who has shepherded some of the most consequential rules changes in the history of the sport.
VAR is not one of them. But incidents like last night’s phantom goal may hasten the inevitable.
TopOfTheCircle.com 
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