E&S hopes ‘unfair’ ruling is reversed after skirmish led to elimination from Public League hoops playoffs

Miya Brown was in the crowd Thursday afternoon when a rush of fans stormed the court, surrounded the teenage basketball players, and put a stop to a Public League boys’ basketball playoff game.

She watched her son — a senior captain at Carver Engineering & Science — leave the court and protect his sister, one of the team’s student managers.

“It was terrifying,” Brown said.

The incident started with a Constitution player going nose-to-nose with an E&S player during a stoppage with 1 minute, 11 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Host E&S was ahead, 61-49, and closing in on a trip to the league’s semifinals.

The E&S player raised his hands and walked backward, attempting to de-escalate the situation. The Constitution player followed him before shoving him. By then, two players from Constitution had left the bench and walked onto the court. Fans soon ran onto the floor, and the E&S players left the bench to join their teammates.

No punches were thrown by players from either side, and the situation eventually settled down. The game ended with 71 seconds left. So did the season for E&S.

The Public League disqualified E&S from Tuesday’s semifinal since its entire bench went on the court, which league president James Lynch said is a violation of the league’s unsportsmanlike conduct policy.

Constitution won the game on a forfeit and will play in the semis against Imhotep Charter. Representatives from E&S were scheduled to meet with Public League officials to discuss the incident on Sunday night.

“A fair decision should have been made,” Brown said. “If you can’t determine that we were not at fault and we won’t proceed, then no one should proceed. This teaches teams that if you can’t compete, you cheat. That’s not the way to teach these student athletes.”

The league’s rules say that a team will be suspended for the following game if its “entire team leaves their bench area and steps onto the field of play during an incident.” A player will be suspended, but not the team, if he leaves the bench.

Lynch said “several” Constitution players will be suspended for Tuesday’s game. But E&S is challenging the ruling as it said the situation was no longer “a basketball game” once fans ran onto the court and caused an unruly scene.

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“The kids didn’t come off the bench when it was just the kids going back and forth,” said Dave McField, a father of an E&S player. “When they saw the mob of fans coming at their teammates, that’s when they came onto the court out of fear to get their teammates to safety. None of the kids were in a fighting stance or throwing punches. They’re very good kids. We’ve never been in this type of situation.”

The game was tense before the incident as players from both teams were issued technical fouls in the first quarter.

“As far as officiating goes, that was the only attempt to get control of the game,” said Nande Hardy, a relative of E&S coach Dustin Hardy-Moore.

Brown said the referees failed to “keep the temperature of the game at bay.” The final stoppage was a whistle for a foul on Constitution, and the referees did not step between the two players jostling on the court. The situation soon unraveled.

“To look around and see the faces of the parents because they are worried about their kids on the court and the kids in the stands are worried about their safety,” Hardy said. “You have kids running on the court with hands in their jackets and grown adults running onto the court. We had no idea where this thing was going to go.”

The teams met earlier this season, with E&S winning by five points. The players played together in the summer on the AAU circuit, and this was a game with big stakes: a chance to go to the Public League Final Four at La Salle University.

“They worked so hard in the spring and the winter and then for it to end like this is a tragedy,” McField said. “It’s unfair, very unfair. At the least, if we don’t get to go, they shouldn’t get to go. All of the kids are kind of let down. They’re in a shock like, ‘Well, how do they get to go?’ I could see if the game was close. There were 71 seconds left in the game with a 12-point lead and we had the ball. How do they get to go?”

The parents said they emailed Lynch about the ruling and hope it can be reversed before Tuesday. E&S, once a league power, has never won a Public League title, and this season was a return to relevance as the forfeit dropped its record to 20-5. E&S was eyeing a rematch with Imhotep, the perennial power that edged the Engineers last month in overtime.

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“It was tough,” Brown said of the loss to Imhotep. “But we lined up, shook hands, said it was a damn good game, came back to the school, and worked on what we needed to do to continue to grow. That’s what we promote at Carver. No violence. We grow. We’ve lost plenty of games in the last four years, we’ve never tried to incite a fight or a riot or any unsportsmanlike behavior.”

McField said an assistant coach from Constitution said his team didn’t want to play Tuesday as it felt the spot belonged to E&S. Now, E&S hopes the league feels the same.

“We did absolutely nothing wrong,” Brown said. “And I say we as in students, coaches, and community. Our students stayed in the stands and our coaches instructed our kids to stay on the bench. But if you were in that audience and you saw the crowd of people swarm those kids, there’s no way that the decision that was made took into consideration that those student athletes feared for their safety.”