A Pennsylvania high school football quarterback and safety could be facing criminal charges after a disturbing in-game incident saw the signal caller take off an opposing lineman's helmet and hit him in the head with it during a game between Hamburg (Pa.) High School and Annville-Cleona.
According to Yahoo! Sports, Hamburg High's Joey Cominsky ripped the helmet off of Annville-Cleona's Josh Hartmann during an on-field scrum between the two teams and bashed him over the head with it twice. Yahoo Sports reports that local police have obtained the video footage of the incident and are looking to pursue possible legal action against the teenager.
Hartmann was lucky enough to avoid serious injury, but missed some game time due to a laceration on his scalp, according to Yahoo Sports, but came back into the game a little later.
"The police are doing their investigation, and that's where it stands at this point," Annville-Cleona athletic director Tommy Long told PennLive, the affiliate that broke the story of the incident. "That's about all I can tell you. It's always disappointing when you see something like this. You certainly don't want to see a situation like this within the lines of a game -- football, basketball, wrestling, whatever."
Cominsky was tossed from the game, along with Annville-Cleona player Taylor Prentice, who immediately jumped into the fray when the brawl first broke out. Yahoo Sports reports that Hamburg hung on to win the game after Annville-Cleona mounted a bit of a comeback following the departure of the Hamburg signal caller.
Annville-Cleona head coach Terry Lehman tried to put a positive spin on the horrific incident, noting that he was proud of his players for almost mounting a comeback after one of their own had gotten injured.
"The Hamburg kid kinda flipped out and took the scrum to a completely different level," Lehman told PennLive. "Our kid is OK. I will say this. Our kids really made a positive out of a very horrible negative. They really hung in there, came back and played as a team."
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