being a safe person for someone's anger

 Yesterday I was coaching and I made up this climbing game where there was a leaderboard and the kids would challenge each other to trying certain climbs and then they would move up or down the leaderboard accordingly. They're a pretty competitive group and I knew there was risk of people getting upset so I tried to preface it as much as possible that it was just for fun and not worth getting upset over and if there were any arguments then the coaches would try to find a fair solution.

Anyway we have this one girl who's a good climber and she was in the top spot and every time someone challenged her for the top spot and she defended it, she would get a point. The game lasted for about 45 minutes and after 40 minutes she had 4 points but was also looking pretty tired and like, the pressure was clearly building. She's a competitive person to begin with. We've got about 5 minutes left and another kid has challenged her and is doing the climb that she will have to do and as we're watching I say to her, "Well, given how much time is left, you've kinda got this thing locked up." Nobody could have been in the top spot and defended 5 times before the end. So she gets on the climb and gets tripped up by one part and falls off and immediately she turns to me, red in the face, and says, "You jinxed me! You messed me up!"

The game ends and she's still won but she didn't go undefeated and end in the top spot and she stayed mad at me. She stayed mad at me all the way to the end of practice. 

My guess as to what happened was there was a lot of pressure and in that moment there was a lot of frustration and I was a person she could direct that frustration towards. It would be wrong to be mad at the other climbers but there's still a lot of emotion that has to go somewhere. I just kinda owned it. I apologized and said that wasn't my intention and that I won't say things like that in the future. And played along with being called annoying and bad.

I can definitely understand really wanting to do something and failing and having a big reaction. I know that feeling. The interesting thing to me was that what I said before she tried the climb was intended to take the pressure off. But the reaction after was like I'd been antagonizing. I could be totally wrong but it really feels like the reaction was less of a 'you're a big jerk and I'm mad at you' and more of a 'I can't deal with everything going on right now and I'm going to have to make it your problem in the meantime'. And I think that's fair. As a coach I'm here for that. Also, like, despite my efforts to the contrary I still set up a somewhat high stakes game with direct competition. So, that's for sure on me.

I'd much rather frame someone's anger and frustration towards me as them trying to manage a difficult situation than an attack on me. Right? Unless I really messed up. Then I just deserve it.