DeMatha was leading Sierra Canyon by almost double
digits in the fourth quarter, but the Trailblazers were mounting a
comeback and chipping away at the lead.
The electrified crowd was enthusiastically cheering on
the hometown Stags. It felt like an NBA-playoff
atmosphere.
Senior point guard Jaden Winston led a very balanced
DeMatha attack with 10 points, but his real impact was felt on the
defensive end where he harassed the Sierra Canyon backcourt the
entire night. The guards were visibly uncomfortable, which at times
led to them struggling to get into their offensive sets and
contributed to Bronny James being held to 11 points on just two
field-goals.
Ashton Hardaway, who led Sierra Canyon with 14 points,
had a very impressive night scoring in a variety of ways —from
fastbreak dunks to offensive putbacks. Down the stretch, he
displayed great footwork with a mid-post move to a turnaround fade
that brought "ooohs" and "aaaahs" from the DeMatha-heavy
crowd.
Unfortunately, a crowd disturbance caused the game to
be cancelled with less than two minutes to go in the fourth
quarter. (DeMatha was leading 52-51 at the time the game was
called).
Following the game, Rashid Ghazi, the president of
Paragon Marketing Group, issued the following statement through
social media: "Given the incident in the stands tonight during the
CBC vs. Stags game at Wise High School, we have cancelled Sunday’s
event. We are making the decision out of the utmost of caution to
ensure player and fan safety. Refunds will be available via Go
Fan."
I spoke to a group of teenage girls outside of the
Wise High School gymnasium who were witnesses to what happened
(including my daughter Imani Thomas) who told me:
“I was walking by the concession line when I just saw
everyone start running. They were jumping down from the bleachers
and stampeding toward the exit. I have never seen anything like
this before. People were so scared; they looked like they were
running for their lives, so I started running too. Not like I was
going to ask anyone what happened or what was going on. I saw
running so I ran.”
Another teenager added: “They should’ve had this at a
bigger place, like where the Mystics play in Southeast. That’s a
big arena, so you wouldn’t have had to have people all in the
aisles and packed around the balcony. That was just a bad set up.
Someone could’ve really gotten hurt.”
Another teenage girl passionately chimed in
with, “This was all Sierra Canyon’s fault. They were so busy
trying to protect Bronny, they caused all of this themselves.
Nothing even happened. There was no fight, not even any punches
were thrown. It was some young boys running off at the mouth at
each other.”
One of Imani’s schoolmates added, “Hey, they gotta
protect LeBron's son. They can’t be having him out here risking it
all.”
Another girl responded: “Yeah, but them being all
scared for no reason caused all this and it wasn’t even that
serious. Nobody would’ve reacted if they didn’t see them start
running for their lives off the court. Ain’t nobody gonna do
nothing to Bronny. I wanted to see them finish the game and send
them back to Cali with an L.”
Imani chimed back in with, “There were just way
too many people in there in the first place. Wasn’t that a
health-code violation or fire-marshall issue or
something?”
They were all absolutely correct in their
assessments.
From where I was standing in the overly-crowded
balcony they were referring to, I could see everything and what I
saw was two young kids who couldn’t have been any older than 6th or
7th grade start arguing with each other. Then, I saw security rush
over toward them and everyone started to look up into the stands to
see what was going on. I looked back onto the court and I saw
Sierra Canyon literally running for their lives off of the court.
What followed could only be described as complete panic and
pandemonium. But as the teenager pointed out, this was 100%
prompted by Sierra Canyon’s sprint off the court.
It’s a shame because it was an amazing display of
basketball being played by both teams filled with
highlights.
A three-pointer from freshman phenom Ashton Meeks
after Jaden Winston makes the defender almost do the splits:
A rebound putback and-one by Malcolm Thomas brought
the crowd to its feet:
A pull-up three-pointer by Bronny James:
But the play that brought the house down was made by
DeMatha’s Chris McElveen. It’s a play that will be talked about in
the DMV for quite sometime. A fastbreak dunk over Bronny James that
almost caused the game to be paused in itself:
Regardless of the unfortunate ending, this was a great
display of basketball played in Prince George’s County on Saturday
night. Yes, adjustments will have to be made the next time as
suggested by the group of very astute and keenly aware teenage
girls. But overall, the crowd definitely got their money’s worth
(even if it was a hiked up $15 a pop for a preseason scrimmage
game).
Credit to Tariq Ali, who contributed the photo of
Bronny James.