This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2010, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Even the next day, nobody on RSL knows exactly why referee Ramon Hernandez so bizarrely changed his call in the dying minutes of regulation time against the Colorado Rapids last night, denying the penalty kick that he had initially awarded to RSL for a handball in the box.Coach Jason Kreis and general manager Garth Lagerwey both said they had not received an explanation for the call, after Kreis in his post-game press conference that Hernandez had a bad night."There were several situations ... where he just didn't have his best game," Kreis said. "He's a decent referee. I've seen him referee before when I thought he was really sharp and managed the game well. I don't think it was his best night tonight. Not sure how you'd make a penalty call like that and then change your mind. It's honestly puzzling to me. I honestly don't know the answer. I don't know what the penalty was for, never got that answer."Presumably, Hernandez allowed a linesman to convince him that the Rapids' Marvell Wynne did not handle the ball in the area, though television replays seemed pretty clear in showing that he did.But Hernandez did not answer questions after the game, team officials said, denying Fox Soccer Channel an explanation of his decision. The penalty could have helped RSL a win instead of a draw, presuming the team still would have been pushing hard enough in stoppage time for defender Nat Borchers to score his first goal in 41 league games.
"I scored, so I think everybody's pretty happy for me," Borchers joked when asked about the mood of the team after the game. "That's rarely going to happen. To be honest, I think everybody's pretty positive about the result. We had a lot of chances. You're going to have days when the ball doesn't go in the net. They had one, two good chances and we were able to keep them from scoring a second."