Basketball Fight Lands Sheriff in Jail

A Kentucky sheriff is jailed and four players are suspended from competition after a fight broke out during a girls high school basketball game. A state trooper said Brent Lynch, the elected Owsley County sheriff who doubles as a coach at Owsley County High School, rushed onto the court and struck a player on the other team during the fight, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. Lynch was arrested and faces a fourth-degree assault charge. He's being held at Three Forks Regional Jail in Lee County and has been suspended for one game.

The fight started in the third quarter of a game Friday, after Lynch's team and Perry County Central High School's were chasing a loose ball, per the Courier Journal. The Perry County school superintendent said the two teams were separated quickly, and a player from each side was ejected, per WKYT. The four suspended players are to sit out for two games. It took state police two days to find Lynch, 47. He's in his first term as sheriff but also has been a state trooper. Lynch was publicly criticized by the superintendent of another school district in 2019 after a confrontation with a fan during a boys game. (More bench-clearing brawl stories.)