15-Year-Old Charged With Felony Assault for Breaking Opponent's Nose at Water Polo Match

(Image by Sean Fornelli, and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.)

LAFAYETTE-An incident during a junior varsity water polo match between Acalanes and San Jose Bellermine Prep has led to charges of felonious assault and battery against one of the Acalanes players.

According to an article in Lamorinda Weekly, the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office filed the charges earlier this month against a 15-year-old Acalanes student who allegedly broke a Bellarmine player’s nose during a tournament match at Las Lomas High School on Sept. 19.

The paper says no one saw the incident because it occurred away from the primary action, but that after a video surfaced, the boy was suspended a day from school and suspended 18 days from the Acalanes water polo team.

JV head coach Russ Stryker told LaMorinda Weekly “The bottom line is we have rules within the schools and within the leagues that take care of these kinds of disciplinary things. In my opinion, it’s not something the courts should be dealing with.”