What could best be described as a “strange turn of events” occurred Friday night at H.F. Brockman Gym with 5:59 left to play in the second quarter of Kewanee’s match up against Quest Charter Academy. 

Quest Coach Ron Ingram informed the officials that he was forfeiting the game, giving Kewanee the win by a 27-13 score. Obviously, there’s a noteworthy backstory leading up to the coach’s decision. 

Both teams were playing aggressive, full court defense throughout much of the first quarter, so things got pretty chippy early on in the game. 

To give you an idea of how “chippy” things got, the 18th foul was called with one second left to play in the first quarter. Ultimately, a total of 26 fouls were called in ten minutes of play. 

Earlier in the quarter (with 4:11 on the clock) there was a stoppage of play until cooler heads could prevail (by both squads). In addition, a double technical was assessed (one on each team). 

However, after each team shot their free throws, the foul frenzy persisted as did the never-ending parade to the free throw line. 

It seemed that something would, ultimately, have to give and that something came about with 5:59 left to play in the first half. Two players (one from each team) went up for a rebound under the Quest basket and both players hit the floor and a bit of shoving happened between the two players and then other players got involved. 

In the end, five Quest players and one Kewanee player were ejected from the game. Coach Ingram then made the decision to forfeit the game. 

All the ejections were for players leaving the bench.

“I believe he (Coach Ingram) was trying to calm his team down early on in the first quarter, but it didn’t seem to help the situation,” said Kewanee Coach Matt Clark. 

“We knew going into the game it was going to be a physical, full court type of game,” he added. “We talked pregame about it being the home opener and in front of a big crowd and that we needed to control our emotions and channel that energy to a positive by being a good teammate and playing team basketball.”

Clark felt his team handled themselves as best they could under the circumstances. “They defended their teammates and protected each other without escalating the situation,” he added. “It seemed that the longer the game continued the worse it got and it was the right decision to end the game.”

Kewanee is now even on the season at 3-3

On a positive note…

Amid the chaos, some good, exciting basketball was played between fouls. “We only played 10 minutes of basketball, but I felt we played some of our best basketball tonight,” noted Clark. 

Catrelle Reed made his first two free throw attempts and Blaise Lewis and Braden Clark each hit their first shots and both happened to be three-pointers, giving Kewanee a quick 8-0 lead.

The stifling full court pressure paid off for Quest as they converted a few steals into layups and came within one point at 9-8.

Later in the quarter, Colson Welgat and Clark made a couple more treys for the Boilers to extend Kewanee’s lead to 18-11. Clark made Kewanee’s final two baskets. All points in between were made at the free throw line.

In spite of only playing two minutes into the second quarter, two Kewanee players scored in double figures. Clark and Lewis each had 10 points. 

Riveters

The Kewanee frosh-soph team defeated Quest Charter Academy, 48-32. Isaiah Ince led the Riveters with 13 points. Griffin Hicks had 12 and Josh Dewante added 10. 

The Riveters are now 4-2 on the season.