[15thRegionSlamaBamma]

I was at this game and first of all I would like to send out my prayers to the kid from Estill.

Cirsumstances like this should not happen provoked or not provoked but it does happen with young men no matter the age 16, 18 or 33 its just a stupied circumstance that happens from time to time. The kids from Johnson are not bad kids and this is coming from someone who has no ties to the school I have just meet the kids and have watched them play occasionaly over the past few years. From the experiences I have saw even when these kids are provoked they do not let their emotions get in the way, this is actually the first time I have seen any of them react in this way. For example in the past Pike Central game, Whitaker by what looked to be an accidental contact to a Pike Central player was proked by a player getting in Whitakers face. Both of Whitakers hands went in the air, backed up and walked away as the other players told him to back up and to not do anything. Now to this incident.

I right around the area where this happened and the kid from Estill what looked to me either A) raised his hand and gave a finger to the face of Welch as they were talking smack or B) slapped him it happened so quick its hard to say. Then Welch reacted and hit the kid. Both parties either way are in fault no questions asked. Neither bench should have even put themselves in the cirumstances of clearing the bench but it did happen and that is that and I am sure there will be penalties for their actions. There is intirealy a diffrence in friends putting space between the opposing players to help sustain the fight and actually being involved in the fight (which was the problem with the estill kid jumping Welch). None of this should have happened and it is a travesty to EKY mountain basketball. My advice to everyone is let it what has happened to be just that and nothing more. Let the suspencions take their courses and stop pointing fingers. It was all parties fault and both teams fault. Not just one or the other, not the mention these refs need to go under evaluation and need to go through training to teach them how to eleviate the possibilites of this happeneing again. I am very very very upset with the cops who were in attendance of this game who did NOTHING absolutley NOTHING to get this under control before it got blown completley out of control which it did.

Yet again I hope the best for the kid from Estill and I hope he is able to play again soon.

I also hope that the parents will just let this go and not take this any furthur then what it needs to go because emotions go rampied and fights happen, if it was a street fight I would say file for an attorney. However this was just a sad event that could have been controled before a fight but was not. Again there are NO INNOCENT parties.