Adam Falloon had a memorable first year as Missouri State High School Activities Association referee at the Show-Me Showdown last spring.

The Montgomery County activities director worked three games, including the Class 5 third-place boys game between Cardinal Ritter and Springfield Catholic that ended in a buzzer beater as Cardinal Ritter’s Clayton Jackson hit a jumper as time expired to lift his team to a 53-51 win.

This year, Falloon was selected to go back to Springfield as MSHSAA referee at the Show-Me Showdown. He worked the Class 1 boys semifinal game between South Iron and Conception on March 9, which was won by South Iron. The following day, he was the official of the Class 1 girls championship game and the Class 3 girls semifinal game between Skyline and Fair Grove. It was the first time Falloon was refereeing state championship and semifinal games.

“It’s exciting,” Falloon said. “It’s something you work towards. Obviously, when you do something like that, you want to try to be good at it. To get the opportunity to have somebody else think you’re good enough to go down there and do it, I think it’s awesome. It’s a good feeling. Obviously, there is a lot of pressure when you go down there and do that stuff. But they had enough confidence in you to do that.”

Falloon has been working as a basketball official for 13 years. He started his career in 2010 when he was a boys basketball coach at Clopton Middle School. He is a member of the Columbia Basketball Officials Association and the Mark Twain Basketball Officials Association.

Falloon said Ronnie Richardson was one of the main reasons why he was excited about going back to Springfield this year. Richardson, another referee, was scheduled to work the Class 1 girls semifinals between Chadwick and Conception and the Class 1 boys championship game.

“He’s a name in the area that everybody knows,” Falloon said. “He kind of took me under his wing and got me going. He’s been to 9, 10 or 11 state championships over his career. The day I got the call, I found out that he was going as well. He’s been kind of a mentor for me and got me started.”

Falloon said he definitely enjoyed working last year’s Class 5 third-place game.

“I was actually in the position on the floor as the official to count the bucket,” Falloon said. “Looking back, it was kind of the perfect setup. In your first game, you will get your feet wet a little bit. By the time you leave, you will be calling a buzzing beating shot to win the game. That was a very good experience and it was a great way to end it. It was good basketball. Even though it was the third-place game, it’s still high level competition.”

Falloon also officiated a 63-43 win by Blue Springs South over St. Joseph’s Academy in the Class 6 girls third-place game and a 51-40 victory by Helias Catholic over St. James in the Class 4 girls third-place game.

“Last year was a good way to get broken in,” Falloon said. “So it kind of worked out well last year for me, nerve-wise. I was trying to acclimate myself down there because the first game we had last year ended up being lopsided, so there really wasn’t a lot of pressure. I got a chance to go in there and get a game in. The game was decided early, so there wasn’t a whole lot of pressure throughout.”

Falloon said he was thrilled to be selected in a large pool of referees to come back to Springfield this year.

“There are a lot of good officials in Missouri,” he said. “They take turns and get the opportunity to go down there and they put themselves into a little bit of fraternity to be able to say that they are a Final Four type of a guy.”