Lady Titans await decision from district on fight: Altercation stopped contest Friday with Dayton leading by 2
Published 12:02 am Wednesday, January 22, 2020
A fight that broke out at the end of the girls basketball game between Memorial and host Dayton on Friday is still under investigation and a winner still not declared, though the ramifications have already been felt.
Memorial coach Kevin Henry and athletic director Brian Morgan declined to comment on the causes of the fight or who participated in it before the results of the investigation were finalized.
With 22 seconds left, as the Lady Titans were preparing to shoot free throws, a fight broke out that spilled onto the court. Officials called the game early before the Lady Titans could take their shots, leaving the score with Dayton in the lead, 46-44. Memorial athletic director Brian Morgan said that result will be discussed at a District 21-5A executive committee meeting that will begin at 10:30 a.m. today. The district will vote if or how the final seconds of the game will be played out and what the penalties are going to be for all of the participants, players and coaches in the altercation, Morgan said.
“It will be up to the district committee to decide if there was an infraction by anybody or to what extent, outside of basic UIL rules,” Morgan said. “There’s some stuff that happened on our end that we’ve got to address with some of our young ladies and our program.”
Memorial suspended some of its varsity players due to the incident on Friday, head coach Kevin Henry said, though he did not say who or how many.
“The UIL will be enforcing some sanctions, so there will be some players that will be suspended,” Henry said.
“I’ve been in constant communication with the UIL and there are certain rules that they have in place and there are certain penalties that we as an athletic department have in place. There are certain standards we hold our athletes to, so we’re going to make sure they follow those standards.”
Henry said he would be short of some players on the varsity team for Tuesday’s game against Nederland and would need to bump up some junior varsity players as well, prompting Tuesday’s junior varsity game to be moved up to 4:30 p.m. and the varsity game to 6 p.m.
