Worst game you have covered?

[blacktitleist]

Two years ago, girls HS hoops. Final score was 26-24. What shocked me was that this was a Regional Championship game, with the winner advancing to the state championship the next week.

Losing team was the defending state champs.

Teams combined to shoot about 20 percent from the floor. Not a lot of turnovers, just an ugly game. Losing coach quote afterwards that I will never forget: "I think we just set basketball back about 25 years."

Winning team went to on win the state championship in a route, scoring I think 60-plus points.

 

[Schottey]

My initial reaction...any volleyball game.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

The worst on my list wouldn't be any blowout. I loved anything where my story could be written at halftime and the only thing I had to do after the game was get quotes and stats.

 

[Bob Slydell]

Had a game couple weeks ago that was 49-0 with 9:15 left in the second quarter. Luckily got running clock. Had a few like that before.

Mine may be a girls district tournament basketball game where it was 2-0 after the first quarter. The 2 came late in the period. Dreadful.

 

[deskslave]

Covered some girls basketball tournament doubleheader (district play-in games or something, I've forgotten). Two games, final scores 33-32 and 32-17.

 

[holy bull]

HS diving (OK, part of a pretty good regional swim meet): Chunky kid 1 flops chest-first into the water; chunky kid 2 flops back-first into the water; chunky kid 3 flips and flops junk-first into the water. Chunky kid 2 wins.

That would make my greatest, not my worst.

Damn, you beat me to it.

First one that comes to mind was a high school girls' lacrosse playoff game. Team gets up by a few goals and plays keepaway. For the whole second half.

 

[BrianGriffin]

Very early in my career I covered a game involving Prairie View A&M when it was in the middle of its NCAA-record losing streak. Its opponent's freshman running back set a school record with 300+ yards rushing in his college debut and the opponent won something like 57-20, ballpark. The opponent went on to go 2-9 and the running back never had another game even close to that. That Prairie View team was so awful, they made a bad team look good and an average running back look like Barry Sanders.

That was a pathetic, pathetic performance.

 

[kingcreole]

Once covered a high school girls softball doubleheader. First game was OK, 9-1 in the final inning. Of course, the visitors then score 10 runs in the top of the seventh and win 19-1.

Second game, visiting team scores 10 in the first inning. It was cold and windy, so I'm praying for five more runs from the visitors soon so the three-inning mercy rule takes affect.

Alas, even after the score was 16-0 after three innings, the home coach wanted to keep playing. Oh well, I've been out there that long, what's two more innings right? Through five innings, it was 24-0. Game over right? Nope, home coach insisted on playing the full seven. Fortunately, the visiting coach kept his ace pitcher in, which allowed the bottom half of the innings to go fast.

Final score - 33-1.

I also covered a 100-24 girls basketball game when the winning team fouled in the final minute to get to 100 points. Among the worst displays of sportsmanship I had ever seen.

 

[Calvin Hobbes]

Division III football game, circa 1993: Allegheny College 83, Oberlin 0. I'm not sure Oberlin ever crossed midfield. Another year, Allegheny beat Oberlin, 55-0, and something like a dozen Oberlin players were injured and couldn't play the following week, so the Yeomen forfeited.

The Gators also beat a team during that same era (can't remember the score or the opponent) and had more than 800 yards.

 

[Spartan Squad]

80-56 8-man football game. The home team goes up 22-0 in the first quarter, and I'm thinking great, this will be over by half time thanks to the 45-point mercy rule. That was especially nice because it was still early in October in the desert, so it was still pretty warm out. Also, it was Octoberfest at the local brewery, so I was dying to get done with the game and down some brews.
Well starting in the second quarter, nobody played defense. 990 combined yards of offense. One team passed every play, the other team ran every play. There were 114 points scored in three quarters, 86 of which were scored between the second and third quarters. There was even a kickoff returned for a touchdown. The winning coach afterward said as a defensive guy, it was one of the worst games he's ever watched.
What was worse, even the beer at the brewery didn't help wash away the taste of that game.

 

[WolvEagle]

All-city prep softball tournament my paper sponsored. Four teams, so it's easy right? First semifinal, the worst team brought nine girls. In about the third inning, I look out to left field and the girl can't stand up straight - she's about to pass out on a hot day and is wobbling back and forth. Game over. Consolation game never was played.

 

[pressboxer]

I had a D-III men's college basketball game last week where the visitors went nearly 17 minutes without making a basket. The team missed 16 shots and committed 20 turnovers while getting outscored 44-1. Nobody played more than 20 minutes for the home team, which still had two guys record double-doubles.

 

[CYowSMR]

Side note: Most of y'all have crappy private schools. Our private schools are the nicest in the area.

 

[bydesign77]

My high school baseball team beat another school two years in a row with a combined of: 159-0. Yes, baseball.

 

[Starman]

I covered a regional softball tournament game once where the final score was 48-47. A total of more than 80 walks in the game. The winning team rallied from an 8-run deficit to win, on 9 consecutive bases-loaded walks.

I think there was a total of about six hits in the game. They went several innings in a row with nobody swinging at a pitch.


Typical inning would go: walk walk called strikeout walk walk(RBI) walk(RBI) walk(RBI) walk(RBI) walk(RBI) walk(RBI) passed ball (runner scores from 3rd) walk walk(RBI) called strikeout walk(RBI) walk(RBI) called strikeout.

Nine runs, no hits, no errors, 3 left on base.

 

[rtse11]

Browns-Lions preseason game. Three stoppages for official review in the final two minutes of the game.

 

[Journo13]

I covered an over-35 basketball game as part of a local club's 3-3 basketball tournament. They whined more than any other group in the place, and I thought one of them was going to attack the tournament director during an argument. On top of that, they all sucked at basketball.

 

[ringer]

A 0-0 tie in men's World Cup soccer.

 

[Batman]

A girls private school basketball game. I think the final was something like 45-41 in overtime. The teams combined for, IIRC, 85 turnovers and 80 free throws. Our local team ended up playing 4-on-5 in overtime because the rest of its players (there were only seven or eight on the roster) had fouled out. The other team had six eligible players at the end, but was only a foul or two away from it being 4-on-4.

It was a trainwreck of epic proportions, but in a weird way it was enjoyable and made for a good story. Game like that, everyone knows how bad it was and they tend to have some fun with it. It allows you to cut loose a little and share the pain, as it were.

 

[93Devil]

I covered a regional softball tournament game once where the final score was 48-47. A total of more than 80 walks in the game. The winning team rallied from an 8-run deficit to win, on 9 consecutive bases-loaded walks.

I think there was a total of about six hits in the game. They went several innings in a row with nobody swinging at a pitch.


Typical inning would go: walk walk called strikeout walk walk(RBI) walk(RBI) walk(RBI) walk(RBI) walk(RBI) walk(RBI) passed ball (runner scores from 3rd) walk walk(RBI) called strikeout walk(RBI) walk(RBI) called strikeout.

Nine runs, no hits, no errors, 3 left on base.

Starman, just warning you, the little girl in my avatar will jam a sharp crayon through your eye if you ever disrespect Mary Poppins again.