South Carolina Teen’s Brutal Soccer Attack Earns Assault Charge

It seemed to come out of nowhere. In the midst of a tight South Carolina girls soccer match between two area rivals, a player fell after a seemingly innocuous foul. While most anticipated that she would calmly restart play, what she did instead has sparked a criminal investigation.

The player who is now the subject of local law enforcement is Lewisville (S.C.) High senior Annette McCullough, who brutally attacked an unnamed Chester (S.C.) High opponent during a Monday match. While there is no video showcasing prior incidents between the two players, McCullough reacted viciously to a small trip that sent her tumbling to the ground.

The attack, which you can see above, featured hair pulling, punches being rained down on the Chester player — Carolinas CBS affiliate WBTV counted 11 different punches — and a frantic attempt to halt the attack before it reached even more dangerous levels.

{snip} Shortly thereafter Chester County deputies were called to the scene and McCullough — who is 18 years old — was charged with simple assault.

Alan Parker, the referee of the match, made perfectly clear that this incident invoked a sense of violence that made it much more troubling than other girls soccer skirmishes.

“Some incidental contact ended in one girl going down and she just got up and started pummeling,” Parker told WBTV. “It’s unfortunate, it really is. Contact is a part of soccer, but when you retaliate like that, obviously, there is no place in the game for that.

“Occasionally you have players that go at it, on the field together, but in this case it was just one girl pummeling the other girl. And she didn’t stop which is even more egregious.”

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