A high school basketball player in West Virginia is facing charges after a rival player suffered a broken nose when hit by an elbow during a game.
Gage Ketterman, 18, of Bowden, who played for Harman School, was charged with deliberately elbowing another player, according to WBOY-TV.
The incident took place on Feb. 27. West Virginia State Police were called by a woman who said her 17-year-old son’s nose was broken during a game and classified the incident as an assault.
She told police that her son’s broken nose bled “profusely” for longer than four hours.
West Virginia high school basketball player faces felony charges for repeated fouls, including breaking competitor’s nose https://t.co/0W1Ji9rMCN pic.twitter.com/QcYO8CAq6F
— New York Post (@nypost) April 14, 2025
A criminal complaint filed by the woman said “the actions of this boy were obviously intentional, and he was trying to hurt people,” according to West Virgina MetroNews.
West Virginia State Police then reviewed multiple video clips of the game.
The review, according to WBOY, showed one player swinging his elbow “directly into the face” of a Union High School player and showed instances when Union players were struck in the back of the head by an elbow.
Should this player be facing charges?
One video of a player hitting another with an elbow was posted to Facebook.
According to MetroNews, troopers found that the suspect “placed both his feet firmly on the floor, reared back and swung his elbow directly into the face of (the victim).”
Troopers said, the video showed the player “swinging his elbow wildly again and striking the back of the head” of the same player who was hit in the face.
A third clip showed the suspect “again swinging his elbow wildly at the head of another Union player,” troopers wrote, noting that the player was a 16-year-old, according to the Inter-Mountain.
That elbow swing hit the player in the shoulder and then the head, troopers wrote.
At one point, according to WBOY, troopers believed the suspect was shown “wiping something off the elbow he had just used to strike [the Union player].”
The player’s actions appeared to be “intentional and criminal malicious in nature,” troopers said.
Ketterman, who was 18 at the time of the incident, was charged with three felony counts — one for malicious assault and two for attempted malicious assault.
Ketterman is free on bond. His preliminary hearing has been scheduled for May 22, according to MetroNews.
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