Matt TrowbridgeRockford Register Star
ROCKFORD —East lost a game at the last second to East St. Louis and may have lost a chance to win the NIC-10 in a melee after that game last Saturday.
Rockford Public School officials say district employees cannot comment on whether any players were suspended or if any disciplinary action of any kind was taken, but four of the team’s top six players did not play in two games this week.
Multiple East players did not play in a Wednesday loss to a Belvidere team that had lost 55 conference games in a row, and they did not play in Friday’s 83-54 loss at Auburn. Antonio Lewis played Wednesday but sat out Friday with an ankle injury.
“It was hard, but we can grow from this,” said Sterling Hoarde, Jr., who led East with 22 points against Auburn. “We competed with them. Once we get our full team back, we can compete with anybody in the NIC-10.”
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Fans talk about the incident
Smartphone videos show East St. Louis players and East players spilling into the gym shoving and throwing punches, while Harlem and Chicago Bogan players were warming up for the next game. East St. Louis had won its first three games in Rockford’s 205 Tip-Off Classic by 49, 37 and 12 points.
Fans at Friday’s East loss to Auburn who also witnessed the previous week's brawl said East St. Louis players bragged they would beat East by 50 points. The Flyers wound up trailing by 16 points in the second quarter before rallying to beat East 65-64 only after JT Samuels missed a free throw with 8.8 seconds left and East St. Louis scored on a layup at the buzzer.
“It takes two to tangle, but East St. Louis had a chip on their shoulder against every team here and when they were getting their butts handed to them they got a little more chippy about it all,” said Matthew Schutte, a 1986 East grad who sat in the front row and had two players “land in our laps” during the fight.
“They came out of the doorway. It was a huge surge. It happened so fast you couldn’t tell what was happening except the two teams came out simultaneously and they were swinging.”
None of the three fans interviewed for this story could say who started the fight. Nor did they object to any discipline the school took or might take. Not even the parent of two E-Rab players.
“You can’t have that and not have something happen. Something has to be done," Sterling Hoarde Sr. said. “Was it handled right or wrong? I am not here to tell you that, but the referees should have got control of that game.”
What the IHSA says about the incident
Kurt Gibson, the IHSA official in charge of basketball, said he and IHSA executive director Craig Anderson met with officials from both schools this week. The IHSA itself suspended Rockford players eight years ago after a post-game fight but said they left this incident up to the two schools.
"The schools," Gibson wrote in an email, "have taken what we believe is significant and appropriate action in response to the post-game incident that occurred between the two schools. The action includes player and coach discipline, along with the development of new post-game procedures their teams will follow in the hopes that nothing of this nature occurs again."
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Past and the future
Saturday's post-game fight was one of the worst in the NIC-10 in three decades.
Other notorious incidents include afight starting in the hand-shake line after Jeffersonbeat East on a last-second shot in a 2014 regional semifinal at Belvidere North. Five Jefferson players weresuspended by the IHSA for Jefferson's ensuing season-ending 77-29 loss to Huntley. East's season was over, but the E-Rabs also had several players suspended. There was also a fight in the stands at a Friday night football game in 1991 that was bad enough that Rockford Public Schools scheduled 11 home games on Saturday afternoons the next year.
East coach Roy Sackmaster said his players "carried themselves with the utmost class" during Friday's short-handed loss. Make that losses. East lost by a running clock at all three levels Friday, losing 65-22 in the sophom*ore game and trailing 30-2 at one point in the freshman game.
"It was a trickle-down effect," Sackmaster said. "Kids at all levels had to be bumped up."
Sackmaster hopes these hard losses can become a "teaching moment" in the end.
"After an unfortunate incident that took place last weekend, our program has had a tough week," Sackmaster said in a statement. "We have taken accountability for our actions in the matter and we will use this as a teaching moment for the student-athletes in our basketball program.
"The type of adversity that we have experienced over the last several days is only going to make us better in the end and, most importantly, it is going to make our guys become better young men."
Auburn, led by Brennan Horton-Lee’s 34 points, led by as much as 42-12 in the game Friday. East (2-5, 0-2) then showed some spirit by going on a 13-0 run before Auburn took over again.
“Something in us sparked us so we went out there and competed even harder,” Hoarde said.
“We just have to have fun and keep playing hard until we get our guys back,” said Samuels, who had 11 points for East.
Contact: mtrowbridge@rrstar.com, @matttrowbridge or 815-987-1383.Matt Trowbridge has covered sports for the Rockford Register Star for over 30 years, after previous stints in North Dakota, Delaware, Vermont and Iowa City.
