St. Thomas More High School varsity boys basketball coach, John Hoch, said his team didn’t deserve the suspension handed down by the WIAA after an altercation broke out between More and Fuller Collegiate Academy toward the end of their game Friday night.
The WIAA suspended both teams after the altercation saying that players leaving the sidelines and heading on to the court during a squabble results in an automatic suspension. More filed to appeal the decision as Hoch said it’s not fair; that officials acted procedurally wrong. A player who was home ill even received the penalty, according to Hoch.
“Procedurally, it was incorrect on about half the players, Hoch said. “So you have the five players on the court but yet they were assessed that penalty, even though they were already on the court for the game. You had a player that was home ill and was assessed the penalty”
Hoch said his players only got up from the bench to pull their teammates away from the situation.
“When you watch the video, there are one, maybe two players that never leave the bench,” Hoch continued. “I think one for sure. The rest though, as you can see on the video, they’re not going to engage. They’re literally trying to grab their teammate and get out of the situation…We could see a large group of people coming at us in an aggressive manner.”
Hoch also said his players never threw a punch.
“We went frame by frame,” Hoch said. “It was very important to us and our school to make sure that none of our players threw any punches and I 100 percent confirm that not one of our players threw a punch during this altercation.”
The WIAA said appeals cannot be filed against decisions made by game officials.
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