Flagrant foul leads to melee among rival basketball teams

PALMER — A moment of celebration erupted into chaos just seconds after the Palmer Moose boys basketball team scored a 60-59 win over the visiting Wasilla Warriors at Palmer High School on Tuesday.

Just as time expired in the fourth quarter, a Palmer player was fouled from a Wasilla opponent underneath the basket on the far side of the gym. The contact left the Palmer player lying on the floor with an apparent leg injury.

While Palmer High School officials tended to the Palmer player, people affiliated with both schools met near the Wasilla team bench on the other side of the gymnasium. Words were exchanged and the two groups had to be separated.

The incident escalated when a man rushed the floor and had to be restrained by a member of the Wasilla High School coaching staff.

“It was an exciting game right down to the last second. The emotions were running high, and things escalated out of control,” Palmer activities director Jeff Thiede said. “We just tried to keep things in order.”

Members of the Palmer High and Wasilla High school administrations quickly diffused the situation before further incident occurred. Wasilla high school assistant principal Dan Michael said the key is keeping fans off the court, regardless of the situation.

“The court is for the players,” Michael said. “We have to stay in spectator mode. There are even rules in place for coaches to stay off the playing surface.”

According to both Thiede and Michael, to their knowledge, there will be no legal repercussion for the adult who stormed the court, but warned of the potential problem of fans entering the playing area during a game or at the conclusion of the contest.

“It’s important for adults to stay above that,” Michael said.

According to the official score sheet distributed after the game, the Wasilla player was issued a flagrant foul for excessive roughness. Per Alaska Schools Activities Association rules, any player tagged with such a penalty, at any time during or after the game, receives an automatic ejection for not only that game, but the team’s next contest.

Wasilla’s next game is today at Colony High School against the Knights.

“Kids make bad decisions sometimes,” Michael said. “Even on a well-disciplined team, kids still sometimes make mistakes.”

The Palmer player involved in the incident was not seriously injured in the incident. For more on the game, see Page A10.

Not an isolated case

This is not the first melee to spring from a high school sporting event in Alaska. Recent examples include a brawl at a Lathrop High School homecoming football game in Fairbanks in September 2008.

Several fights broke out inside Lathrop Stadium while the Malemutes were in action against West Valley High School. Although in this case, the fights reportedly did not spill over from events on the football field, police did take three spectators into custody, according to a Fairbanks Daily News-Miner report, and several people were either injured or pepper-sprayed.

The homecoming game was suspended in the second half.

In January of 2008, a brawl during a boys’ basketball game between East Anchorage and Dimond led to the suspensions of several players and students. After a fight broke out on the court, according to an Anchorage Daily News report, five East Anchorage High School students who were spectators at the game, two Dimond players on the bench and a Dimond assistant coach rushed the court.

This incident started when an East player fouled a Dimond opponent and then assaulted him. The East player was hit with a multi-game suspension, two Dimond players received one-game suspensions and the five East Anchorage students who stormed the court from their seats in the bleachers were suspended from school, the ADN reported.

Contact Frontiersman Sports Editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.