Video: Fight erupts in handshake line after St. Francis vs. Sacred Heart game

Being snowed in meant it was time to check out some NEC action between St. Francis University and Sacred Heart, and I tuned in just in time for the real action to begin.

With St. Francis leading 56-50 with about nine minutes left in the game, Red Flash guard Keith Braxton prepared to score on a fast break. Sacred Heart’s Alex Watson tried to break up the play, and committed a hard foul. The Red Flash broadcasters seemed to think of it as just a hard basketball foul, but that’s not what the team thought. Braxton immediately took exception to the play and tried to storm after Watson before being intercepted by his teammates.

Still, some pushing, shoving and back-and-forth broke out. Footage of the initial incident and follow up is below. Pardon my excitement in the tweet — as many of you have chirped me (correctly so) saying that this doesn’t qualify as a brawl.

If there’s one big takeaway here, it’s this: if I’m ever in a fight, I want Anthony Latina on my side. He was out there in a flash (pun intended) and made sure to break things up. Somehow, no one was ejected from the game and play went on.

After free throws were sorted, the rest of the game was relatively uneventful with St. Francis pulling out a 72-65 victory. Well, if you were looking for a brawl (and weren’t satisfied with the initial fighting that I called a brawl), you got one in the handshake line. It’s hard to sort out who all was involved here, but things certainly got nasty. It looks like some punches were thrown, and it is never a good sign when one team chases the other team halfway across the court.

I’m sure suspensions will be coming from this, and we’ll be sure to keep you updated as more becomes available.