A Florida flag football game ended in a brawl — and with a father and daughter arrested.
The incident began during a postgame handshake on Oct. 20, with one female player allegedly attacking another, before a coach got involved by putting the opposing player in a chokehold for approximately 15 seconds, according to court documents viewed by The Post.
Multiple eyewitness accounts identified a 16-year-old as the assailant, who pulled 15-year-old Sophia Lopez to the ground by her hair.
“She started making fun of me for losing the game,” Lopez told CBS12 News. “The one thing I said to her that set her off was, “You just fell on your face, and it’s a rec game.”
The 16-year-old’s father and coach, Brandon Mayer, 37 stepped in and used a “choking mechanism” on Lopez, per the head referee.
“It felt everything was so tight,” Sophia said. “It felt like I was just, I was never gonna get out until I just saw black.”
“It was a complete choke,” Ryan Lopez, the coach of his daughter’s team said. “So he’s pulling her forward and he’s trying to pull her back, not by her waist, which would be the common sense thing to do.”
Lopez’s father, Ryan, then intervened, with the group falling to the ground; Lopez’s father claims the 16-year-old kicked him in the face with her cleat as he tried to get up.
Both Brandon and his daughter painted a different picture of the altercation to police on Oct. 28, with the 16YO claiming Lopez got in her face and Brandon attempted to separate them in a “mirrored fashion.”
Officials deemed there to be enough probable cause to charge Brandon Mayer on a felony charge of Battery by Strangulation; he was booked on Oct. 28 and released the following afternoon on $75,000 bond.
Per CBS12, the 16-year-old was charged with simple battery.
