There are cheap shots and then there’s this.
During a Bay Area high school football game on Friday, a player from College Park high school in Pleasant Hill leveled Windsor High School quarterback Tyler Swanson during a kneel-down at the end of a 41-15 blowout. Swanson was attempting to run out the clock, but the College Park defensive player broke into a full sprint and launched himself at Swanson’s neck area while he was on the ground.
Swanson sustained a head injury but seems to have avoided anything serious.
“We’re lucky our guy isn’t in the hospital right now, because the guy came off the edge and behind him and speared him in the back of the neck,” Windsor head coach Dean Sexton told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
“I’ve never been a part of a game like that in all the years I’ve coached, as far as cheap shots and penalties and just really scary-looking plays,” Sexton continued. “I mean especially there at the end.”
This is the second time this season College Park has made headlines for the wrong reasons. In fact, College Park head coach Travis Raciti was returning to the sideline on Friday after serving a two-game suspension for running up the score in a 84-0 game vs. Ygnacio Valley High School earlier this season. In that game, College Park was flagged four times for excessive celebration.
Raciti did not comment on the incident, but the College Park superintendent Adam Clark did.
“I take full responsibility,” Clark told the Bay Area News Group. “I am the superintendent. It’s my high school. My district. With that said, I want to send out my most sincere apologies to the young man who was hurt and to his family and to the fans and coaches and his teammates.”
Clark says a full investigation is underway.
