The Mesa Vista High School boys junior varsity basketball game against Pecos High School Jan. 24 ended with a narrow defeat for Mesa Vista and an all-out brawl that left six players on each team suspended for two games.
The two schools’ varsity and “C” teams also played that night, without incident, according to parents and Mesa Vista Athletic Director Ruben Lucero. The students will also be required to take a “Pursuing Victory With Honor” ethics seminar.
The parents of two Mesa Vista players asked the School Board at a Jan. 28 meeting to suspend the sanctions for their sons, arguing the Mesa Vista team acted in self-defense.
“They had no other recourse other than to fight back to keep from getting hit,” parent Margaret Alire said. “We saw fans come down from the stands and hit our students on the head.”
Lucero, who saw the fight unfold from the bleachers, said both teams’s players were at fault — and both sides are claiming they acted in self-defense.
“Both sides had been talking trash the whole game,” Lucero said. “And that’s normal, that’s part of the game. But once that buzzer goes off, it’s supposed to end there.”
But it didn’t. Lucero said minutes after the game, a Pecos player approached a Mesa Vista player, pointing at the buzzer, and said, “What now, (expletive)?”
A Mesa Vista player responded by shoulder-butting the Pecos student as he walked past, and he answered that gesture with a punch to the back of the Mesa Vista player’s head, sparking a fight between both teams, Lucero said.
The two parents — Alire and Georgia Cruz — who addressed the Board on Jan. 28 also claimed students were unfairly coerced into incriminating themselves when they were asked to provide written accounts of the incident, which were later allegedly used as the basis to punish the students. Cruz and Alire also said parents were never informed of the investigation.
“We can’t promise they will be reinstated, but as the Board, we can find some answers for you,” Board President Joe Gurulé said.
Lucero said the parents were informed. But the punishment cannot be lifted because they were issued to both schools by the New Mexico Activities Association, he said.
Association spokesman Robert Zayas confirmed officials from his organization met with both schools, but declined to confirm whether sanctions had been issued.
“We hand down sanctions down to schools, but it’s up to the schools to divulge the sanctions themselves,” Zayas said. “If they want that info to be made public, they can go ahead and do that. But if they want to keep it in-house, we give them every right to do so.”
Pecos Athletic Director Chris Henson could not be reached for comment.