Bourne athletic director Scott Ashworth has seen such a dramatic increase in one-sided basketball contests in the South Coast Conference to be concerned.

At Wednesday’s MIAA Basketball Committee meeting, Ashworth elaborated on the issues and was hoping to find ways to minimize the lopsided scores.

“Some of the scores in our girls basketball league and in District A have gotten so bad that we are in a crisis mode,” said Ashworth, who also coaches the boys basketball team at Bourne. “It’s really creating some divisiveness among some of the coaches. I know in football they have a running clock when scores get lopsided so maybe we could look into something like that for basketball.”

According to the National Federation of High Schools, states do have the flexibility to employ a running clock if they prefer. The committee agreed that it is something they can look into and the next step would be to figure out what an appropriate margin would be and when in the game would it warrant running time and put it into a rules proposal change.

One of the issues which will certainly be discussed among the winter sports committees until a solution is found is the teachers strike in Newton. Wednesday marked the ninth day that the teachers walked out and put a stoppage to all sporting events.

In response to a question posed by Tewksbury athletic director Ron Drouin regarding any contingency plans should the strike continue, MIAA associate director Sherry Bryant said the organization is definitely monitoring the situation for the time being.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, it appears as though the state finals will be contested at the Tsongas Arena on the weekend of March 15-17.