By Malcolm Butler
It wasn’t the ending Cedar Creek wanted for their Senior Night.
With 4:46 remaining in the fourth quarter and St. Frederick leading 72-49, the District 2-1A match-up was stopped by officials following an on-the-court fight.
Following a missed shot on the Warriors end of the floor, St. Fredrick’s Miller Day appeared to stumble to the floor. Cedar Creek junior Luke Waldron then stumbled over Day as he turned to head up the court, prompting Day to jump up and throw a punch at Waldron in front of the Warriors bench.
Players from both teams appear to leave the bench areas. Officials and coaches were able to quickly de-escalate the situation, preventing additional altercations from occurring.
Despite the early stoppage of the game, the Warriors will get the 23-point win. Officials said they would turn in their report to the LHSAA which would also review video before handing down any suspensions. According to the LHSAA rules, anyone involved in a fight and any players who leave their bench area regardless of whether they throw punches or not will be suspended for the next game.
“Obviously the game was called,” said Cedar Creek Director of Athletics Gene Vandenlangenberg. “We all saw that. I believe the LHSAA will review the tape and based on what they see on the tape, they will hand out the decisions on if and when any suspensions may take place. The tape hopefully has all that information that the high school athletic association can review.”
St. Frederick head coach Jarvis Brown was reached for comment late Thursday night.
“It was unfortunate the game ended the way it did,” said Brown. “It is not a representation of who we are as a school. We just have to let the referees do their evaluation, whatever they decide. I actually didn’t see what happened. We just have to put it in the hands of the officials and go from there.”
The game itself was tense between the two district rivals. However, prior to the fight, there hadn’t been any obvious signs of altercations outside of a technical foul called on Warriors Nate Neal earlier in the fourth quarter for a verbal altercation after committing a foul.
Cedar Creek head coach Lance Waldron did leave the Cougars bench at one point in the second quarter while free throws were being shot on the other end to talk to game management officials about what he felt was unsportsmanlike chatter coming from the St. Frederick student section.
“It was about their fans. Their student section was … I don’t want to sound petty,” said Waldron. “You know high school basketball is fun when you have two student sections that are lively, but their student section wasn’t fun. It was name calling. Individual insults. Then when the administration came over there I think they were rude to them too. You couldn’t help but hear it.
“You are teaching your players not to talk to the referees because Lord knows we have had our stumbles with that this year. We tell the kids don’t talk trash and don’t talk to the referees. I have players coming to me during the game saying, ‘Coach, we aren’t talking. We aren’t talking. We are doing what we are supposed to do.’ And they did, but it kept going and going. The game was out of hand. They were beating us. But it was insult to injury.”
Waldron said from his vantage point the game-ending play wasn’t instigated by any of his players.
“I think we were making a basketball play at the end,” said Waldron. “I wish the camera hadn’t panned away because you can’t completely see everything that happened. I don’t know who was throwing the punches. You can clearly see people leaving the bench.”
Cedar Creek officials said there are security cameras within the gym that they believe will have even clearer footage then the game film of what transpired.
Once game officials, security, coaches and administrators were able to separate the two teams, Waldron took his team completely off the floor to their locker room in order to prevent anything from escalating. St. Frederick coaches had their players sitting on their bench.
Following the decision to end the game prematurely, officials escorted the St. Frederick student section out of the gym in order to not have the two student sections interacting.
Both schools will await the decision on possible suspensions from the LHSAA. Cedar Creek is scheduled to play at Castor Tuesday. St. Frederick is scheduled to play at Beekman Charter Monday.
“According to what the referees told me after the game, if one person was just hammering on the other … they are both suspended,” said Waldron. “I don’t understand that rule … and he didn’t understand it either, but he says that’s the rule.”
The ending dampened impressive performances by Cedar Creek’s Connor Johnson who had 25 points and St. Frederick’s Payton Odom who had 22 points.
