A fight on the court Saturday night overshadowed the season-opening boys basketball game between St. Vincent-St. Mary and host Cleveland Central Catholic.
Senior Jayvon Graves led St. V-M with 26 points in a game that came to a sudden end with the Irish leading the Ironmen 70-53 with 3:52 remaining in the fourth quarter. A scuffle between multiple players, and then a subsequent fight involving players and spectators who rushed the floor, ended a physical game before a sold-out crowd of more than 1,000.
St. V-M returned to Akron with a win, and CCC took the loss. Now each team is waiting to see if any punishments will be handed out to players.
St. V-M coach Dru Joyce II and CCC coach Jordan Duke both said the brawl started after a foul was called. Coaches and police restored order moments later.
“They were pressing us coming up the court and they didn’t communicate,” Joyce said. “Our guy set a screen and their guy ran hard into a screen coming up the court. We then passed the ball to one of our players underneath and they clotheslined him and threw him to the floor.
“Our guy got up and went to push the guy. The guy that got hit with the screen ran in and I guess he saw that our guy was about to push a guy and he [a CCC player] threw a punch, and then there were a few punches thrown after that.
“People came out off the stands, but both coaches from both teams separated players and got control. The parents and everybody on the court, they were on the court, but the fight, if you will, did not last long and did not last beyond one or two punches.”
Duke called the game “chippy,” and both coaches indicated they were not pleased with the officiating.
“It was never controlled from the beginning,” Duke said. “It was a chippy game between two of the better teams in Division II who have been rivals for a couple of years now.
“It got to the fourth quarter. ... We got fouled on our offensive end and it wasn’t called, and then they came back on their offensive end and one of their players hit one of our players with an illegal screen that wasn’t called by the official. When it wasn’t called by the official, he then started to taunt him after the illegal screen wasn’t called.
“Then, we go up to challenge a shot as the play goes on and we foul them. Our guys started to walk away from the foul and a couple of their guys push us in the back and start to swing, and then it was a melee from there.
“I watched the film and it wasn’t a clothesline. He went to block the shot and he didn’t get the shot, he hit him. Maybe it was above the neck and it might have been a flagrant foul because he didn’t touch the ball, but it had nothing to do with retaliation from an illegal screen. It was a play on the ball for him not to make the bucket.”
Duke said his players tried to avoid a confrontation.
“You could see on the film our kids walking away, and then [St. V-M players] started to turn around and push our guys and throw a punch,” Duke said. “After that, it became a retaliation and defending ourselves. ... [St. V-M players] threw the first punch.”
Joyce said “the refs really didn’t control the situation.”
“The game was heated from the beginning,” Joyce said. “The referee made the right call when he called an intentional foul when our guy was clotheslined, but he didn’t get in between the players. They had already called double-technicals earlier in the game for some other things. We told them about an incident of a kid spitting at a player. We shared all of that and they knew how volatile the situation was. He called the intentional foul, but he didn’t step in between the players fast enough.”
St. V-M held a 41-28 halftime edge and never trailed in the second half.
Joyce said CCC made the decision to call the game and award St. V-M the win.
“I went to [the CCC assistant athletic director] and I said, ‘Hey, I want to finish,’ but he said, ‘No, we are not going to finish the game,’ ” Joyce said.
“I said, ‘Are you saying that we won the game?’ And he said ‘Yes.’ I went to the referees and I asked all of the refs, ‘The AD is calling the game. In your minds did we win the game?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ All the refs agreed and their coach agreed that we won the game so we will not have to go back and play that last three minutes.
“We have been in touch with the Ohio High School Athletic Association and we have been instructed to handle this with Cleveland Central Catholic. Both ADs will look at the film and make a judgement on how they will proceed forward.”
Joyce said “if someone left the bench that the rule is they will be suspended for a game.”
Duke and Joyce said there were no ejections or arrests in the gym.
“The referees didn’t take names down or [uniform] numbers down, which is confusing to me because I don’t know how to do anything from here,” Duke said. “We have to wait and see what the state [OHSAA] says.
“When there is a fight and it has something to do with the kids, we can handle that, but when fans start to come on the floor on both sides it is just unacceptable.”
Duke said there were no postgame handshake.
“We got our kids off the floor and they got their kids off the floor and we called it a night after that,” Duke said.
Duke said there was no bad blood between the two teams prior to the game, but that he noticed throughout that there was physical play and talking.
“Probably the middle of the third quarter was when it was like, ‘OK, guys, there is too much taunting going on and too much jawing back and forth going on.’ We were trying to clean it up and we asked the refs multiple times to ‘Please watch this and please watch that.’ They never got the game under control.”
Duke said there was a normal police presence at the game with a sellout crowd.
Graves (26 points), John Williams (17 points) and Malik Wooldridge (eight points) led St. V-M. Lunden McDay, Justin Sampson, Keyshawn Jones, DeAmonte’ King, Scott Walter and Dom Moegerle combined to score 19 points.
Miryne Thomas paced CCC with 17 points. Alex Heath and Dion Ivory scored 13 points and 11 points, respectively, for the Ironmen.
St. V-M will play at Youngstown Ursuline on Friday and CCC will host Cleveland Benedictine on Friday.
St. V-M and CCC are in separate districts in the postseason, but they could meet again if they advance to the regional bracket.