Drug tests, “preachers”, scoring errors led to basketball brouhaha

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A “comedy of errors” led to the fights that took place at the ASHSAA championship basketball game between Nu’uuli Vocational Technical High School and Manumalo Academy High School, this past Monday night, April 3, 2023, at the Manumalo Academy gymnasium.

It started going downhill after the game was delayed from its original date.

As reported by Samoa News earlier, the debacle began when the championship game, originally scheduled for March 23, 2023 was delayed after a ‘preacher’ associated with Manumalo stopped the game two weeks ago and demanded that one of NTVHS’ players be tested for drugs.

The player, according to the NTVHS head basketball coach, was drug-tested by the preacher and the results were given to the head of ASHSAA. However, the sports organization’s board decided they would not use the test and would go forward with the game, and ultimately rescheduling it for Monday night. It’s unclear what authority the ‘preacher’ had to stop the game, and why ASHSAA officials at the game entertained his demands.

The game was rescheduled for Monday night, April 3, 2023 but before the game concluded, there was commotion coming from the stands, originating from the side where NVTHS supporters were, where they were calling out the score-keeper for giving a point to Manumalo team when they witnessed that it was actually a NVTHS player that had made the point. It is also reported that NVTHS students were upset mainly towards the “preacher” that was present at the game, for allegedly influencing the score-keepers and the officials that night.

It is stated that this is what caused NVTHS supporters and students to be upset, that the officials had not noticed the error in score-keeping, which resulted in someone from the NVTHS side throwing a empty plastic container onto the court, and eventually leading to the first brawl that forced officials to stop the game, with the officials naming Manumalo as champions, with 2 minutes still remaining on the clock.

After the first brawl broke out and the tension had settled down, they proceeded with the awards ceremony and Manumalo was named as the basketball tournament champions for the 2022-2023 school year, which was perceived as a questionable call by the officials since there was 2 minutes remaining in the game.

After the awards ceremony, a second brawl broke out and it was unknown at the time who had started that fight.

Members of the public came forward claiming one of the players from Manumalo was the one to throw the first punch.

Samoa News made attempts to contact both schools involved and the American Samoa Department of Education.

A Dept. of Education staffer told this reporter to contact the schools for any comments.

NVTHS did not reply to our request for comments.

However, Tish Peau, a Manumalo School board member provided comments and a video to confirm her statements.

Ms Peau told Samoa News that the second fight happened when a student, who is allegedly also a player from Pacific Horizons School approached Manumalo’s water boy and proceeded to grab him by the collar, and that’s what led to the Manumalo player stepping in to intervene and try to prevent further violence.

The Manumalo player’s effort was unsuccessful when a NVTHS player allegedly leaped out from the crowd and threw the first punch.

To date, ASHSAA has made no official comment about Monday’s game or its result, despite the 2-minute remaining on the clock and the mis-posted score.

Samoa News should point out that ASHSAA does not have by-laws governing the use of drug tests on its players, and that drug tests are also known to give false positives.