Banner Graphic, Volume 15, Number 183, Greencastle, Putnam County, 2 April 1985 — Page 6
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The Putnam County Banner-Graphic, April 2,1985
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Georgetown still good team
By GEORGE VECSEY c. 1985 N.Y. Times News Service LEXINGTON, Ky. Banish the word “dynasty” from the dictionary. Eliminate the phrase “strongest ever” from the computer Be careful of any comparisons with history. Massimino’s rule is in effect: Perfection can beat Georgetown. Villanova’s underdog team defeated Georgetown, 66-64, by attacking Patrick Ewing and the inside of the formidable Georgetown defense for the national college basketball championship. Until the Villanova players waved their fingers in celebration in the final moments, Ewing and his teammates had been unbeatable for 17 straight games and were being compared with the best teams of the past. And the Georgetown aura of invincibility seemed to be growing in the hours before last night’s game. Suspecting that some people still believe his Georgetown players are as workmanlike in private as they are on the job, John Thompson devoted a recent con-sciousness-raising session to a rare glimpse of Georgetown social life visiting a Kentucky horse farm. “We carry on a lot of foolishness, but when the mallet hits the table, we are serious,” Thompson told reporters. Court was in session Monday night as Georgetown tried, but failed, to defend its national title. Ever since Georgetown
Only one shot between Wildcats and perfect half
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - When Patrick Ewing swatted away a Dwayne McClain shot in the second half of the NCAA championship game, it seemed like just another routine rejection for Georgetown’s giant center. It was, however, much more than that. Had McClain found the net instead of Ewing’s hand with that shot, Villanova would have been perfect with 10-for-10 from the field in the final 20 minutes of Monday night’s game. As it turned out, 90 percent was good enough to construct a 66-64 upset that made the Wildcats surprise national
County high school baseball teams ready to open
Outfield only question mark in Meyer's mind
By STEVE FIELDS Banner-Graphic Sports Editor Ed Meyer was probably smiling Tuesday morning. No, he didn’t have money on Villanova in Monday night’s NCAA championship basketball game, although he might have wished he had taken the spread in a wager. Blue skies and sunshine were probably enough to make Meyer smile because that meant DePauw University’s 1 p.m. doubleheader with Butler University was go for Walker Field. And if the weather holds out Walker Field should be in even better condition for Wednesday’s 3:30 p.m. game with Missouri Valley Conference title contender Indiana State. WIN OR LOSE, playing the three games against the Division I schools, or for that matter against anybody, is enough for Meyer after six games in Florida last week. “I always say if you go down there and come home and don’t play, you lose whatever momentum you picked up,” Meyer said. DePauw comes home 3-9, posting a 1-5 record in Florida. The Tigers lost to Valdosta 16-7 in the first game of the trip, but came back to win the second 13-11, Greencastle High School product Tracy Pursell getting his first official collegiate victor}' in a relief role. But after that the Tigers dropped four straight, three by one run. Division I Tampa drilled DePauw 12-2, while Division I Toledo slipped by twice 1-0 and 1-0 and St. Leo’s, the only Division 111 opponent, escaped 10-9. BY PAST STANDARDS, the trip wasn’t a complete failure, the Tigers did win a game and Meyer admitted he’s lost as many as 10 to the more advanced southern or Division I schools. “This year I was smart, I only played single games so I couldn’t lose that many,” Meyer joked. As you can tell, DePauw played right with the northern school Toledo, and even St. Leo’s. “The northern pitching was a test for the northern hitting, but when you face a southern team (Valdosta, Tampa, St. Leo) the bats were ahead of you and the hitting was ahead of you, ” Meyer said. “I saw more lefthanders than I’ve ever seen. We must have faced at least five on the trip, either starters or relievers. That’s a lot of lefthanded pitching and I was surprised at that. Back here you generally don’t see it that much. We can’t provide batting practice from the left side enough to really feel good about facing the lefthander, ” Meyer explained. DePAUW LEFT WITH three goals, the first being safety. The second goal was to improve as a baseball team and the third was simply to have fun. All 21 players, coaches and other personnel
arrived in Kentucky for the Final Four, Thompson has been asking that Georgetown be judged on what it does on the court, not by “sitting players in the bleachers and having them talk all day and be nice guys ; I know a lot of nice guys, but they ain’t here.” Although a lot of people regard Georgetown somewhat negatively because of its neutral public face, the team went into the final game of the Patrick Ewing era having lived up to its own standards. While an all-America player like Keith Lee of Memphis State let himself be taken right out of the tournament by personal fouls, and Chris Mullin of St. John’s finished with an 8-point performance because of a magnificent defensive job by David Wingate of Georgetown. “I tell my players, ‘You chose to be basketball players, you chose to be a basketball team, now be the best you can,’ ” Thompson says. Because he has avoided all but the mandated press appearances in this tournament, staying 75 miles to the west in Louisville, Thompson has contributed to the public impression that Georgetown is a joyless band of automatons. Just to set the record straight, however, Thompson described a visit last week to the Hermitage Farm of Warner Jones Jr. in Goshen, Ky. “We had a great time,” he said. “They brought out a wagon and
champions, the first unranked team since City College of New York in 1950 to claim the crown. Villanova shot a record 78.6 percent from j;he field, missing only six of 28 field goal attempts all night and only one McClain’s short shot with 11:01 left in the second half. They were 22 for 27 from the foul line, an impressive 81.5 percent. One of the missed free throws also belonged to McClain. It came with 59 seconds to play and ended a tournament streak of 20 straight for him. Losing Georgetown got 16 points on 8-for--14 shooting from David Wingate and 14
made the round trip without accident or incident. The third goal took care of itself. However the second goal has a little bit of a gray area to it. “I think we improved our infield defense. We don’t think we improved our outfield, yet, we have had more opportunities, more experience, so in effect we should be better outfielders than had we stayed here and not played” Meyer appraised. Going to Florida the outfield trio of Marvin Flewellen, Billy Chestnut and Jim Folland was in question. “The outfield was suspect when we went down there and it hasn’t changed one bit. Billy should be great, he’s only good. What I mean by that is he botches up the routine play every once in a while and has yet to make a great play and in Valdosta he had a couple of chances. “Marvin botches up the routine play more than once in a while and hasn’t made a real good play,” Meyer said. “That may sound harsh, but we’ve talked to all of them about it. Jimmy Folland struggled all last year and struggled at the beginning of this year.” FRESHMAN MATT MOODHE was the only bright spot in the outfield, yet his lack of experience beat the Tigers against Toledo. The Buffalo Groves, 111. native miss-played a ball in a stiff wind and missed it. “He was the most convincing of all the outfielders,” Meyer said. As for the infield, it looks like senior John Hayden is back in as the No. 1 shortstop and David Chalmers will move from second to third base, John Getgey moving to second. “David at third and at second made every play defensively you could ask a kid to make,” Meyer said of the junior. Jeff Repasky’s inconsistency with a glove at third cost him a starting assignment. Don’t worry about first, Scott McMahon has that position anchored defensively, as well as offensively. “I WAS DISAPPOINTED in the hitting, in the timelines of hitting. We had lots of chances in the one-run games, but didn't
Villanova is Cinderella champion
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - Far from owning a place in the history books, Georgetown and Patrick Ewing are mere footnotes to Villanova’s place in the NCAA’s record book. The Hoyas were all but conceded a second consecutive national championship before the basketball tournament began even before the basketball season began and most certainly before Monday night’s final against Villanova began. “We’re going to have to play a perfect game against Georgetown to win,” rolypoly Rollie Massimino, the Wildcats’ animated coach, had said before they pulled off one of the sport’s greatest upsets with a 66-64 victory. His prediction wasn’t far off. More accurately, his players weren’t. They hit 78.6 percent of their shots from
pulled us around the farm. There was hay and straw in the wagon, and who knows what else, and some of my players were looking for paper to sit on, but I just laughed at them and sat down in the stuff.” “I asked the owner how he could tell whether a horse was a champion, and he said a lot of things about the legs and the shape and the back and all that,” the coach said. “But finally he admitted, ‘lt’s really the heart that counts.’ I turned to my players and I said, ‘See?’ ” Georgetown has proven its heart during the four years of Patrick Ewing. Thompson believes that part of its strength comes from privacy. His point was, judge Georgetown on its 121-22 record in the Ewing era. The team developed into one of the most imposing in history because of role players like Horace Broadnax, a tireless guard, and Ralph Dalton, the intelligent backup who rescued the regional final against Georgia Tech when Ewing was in foul trouble. Ewing and Georgetown are rarely beaten by personal fouls, and Thompson scoffs at the idea that Georgetown “funnels” the opposition to Ewing so he can slap away a shot. “If the ball gets to Patrick, it’s because our defense isn’t working right,” he said. “We don’t want the ball to get to him.” Ewing, who began his first championship game three years ago by swatting
from Ewing, who hit 7 for 13. Both were over the 50 percent break-even figure that usually defines a good shooter. But each of them missed six shots and that equalled the total number of field goal attempts missed by the entire Villanova team. McClain and Ed Pinckney were both 5 for 7 and Harold Pressley 4 for 6 from the field. They accounted for the six misses. Guards Gary McLain (3 for 3) and Harold Jensen (5 for 5) were perfect. Coach Rollie Massimino was satisfied, but noted somewhat facetiously that his team could have done even better. “We didn’t shoot 100 percent,” he said.
Fields' Findings
the field 10 in the second half to surpass both the championship-game record of 67.4 percent by Ohio State in 1960 and the tournament record of 75 percent by Northeastern in the opening round a year ago. The Hoyas were supposed to become the first team since the 1973 UCLA Bruins to win consecutive ( les. They were supposed to join UCLA, Oklahoma A&M, Kentucky, San Francisco and Cincinnati as repeat champions. And Ewing, the monolithic 7-footer with the wingspan of a condor, was supposed to join the select company of Lew Alcindor, Bill Walton, Jerry Lucas, Alex Groza and Bob Kurland as a multiple winner of the tournament’s Outstanding Player Award. It all came crashing to the court in Rupp Arena. Ewing alone missed as many shots
away every North Carolina shot in the opening minutes, incurring goaltending calls, has learned selectivity. When St. John’s made a few excellent feeds to Bill Wennington in the semifinal game Saturday, Ewing gave Wennington the simple dunk shot rather than pick up a foul. In contrast, Keith Lee was in personal foul trouble for the last 15 games of his career, fouling out against Villanova with 10:22 left on an impulsive lunge for a loose ball. He fixed a baleful stare at the officials and planted his feet on the court until requested several times to leave. The Memphis State players complained that Ewing and Mullin were given more protection than Lee, with Baskerville Holmes saying: “You haven’t seen the real Keith Lee. You’ll see him in the N.B.A. next year.” Dana Kirk, the Memphis State coach, has suggested that the automaticdisqualification rule be abandoned because “the fans pay money to see Keith Lee play, and if they don’t, they aren’t getting their money’s worth. ” Kirk is wrong. The five-fouls-and-out rule is part of basketball and should not be altered. College basketball is a game in which the best coaches learn to adjust their defenses to protect their stars, and the best players learn to avoid easy fouls.
“But we got the ball where we wanted it and to whom we wanted it.” For the night, Villanova had a combined total of 11 shots six field goals and five free throws that did not wind up in the net. Forty-four others, however, hit home. Villanova’s accuracy surpassed the 67.4 percent record established in 1960 when Ohio State beat California to win the crown. It also bettered the 75 percent shooting of Northwestern, which set the all-time tournament record in a first-round game last year against Virginia Commonwealth.
hit,” Meyer said, noting the Tigers had the top of their order at the plate in those winning opportunities. “Billy (Chestnut) would get three or four hits in one game and then get no hits the next. Instead of getting two-for-four, two-for four, and being part of your success, they seem to get them in clusters.” The one-run loss to St. Leo would partially be attributed to injury. By that last game, Folland had a pulled hamstring and Chestnut and catcher Andy Nixon had heat stroke in the near 90degree weather. Considering Sunday and Monday weather here that sounds a little strange, doesn’t it? AFTER THE TIGERS rallied to tie St. Leo they lost it when freshman catcher Chris Fix overthrew third as a man was stealing, allowing the tying run to score. Meyer wasn’t down on Fix though, noting he’s a good catcher and going to be an even better one in the next couple of years. Going into the three-game stretch with Butler and ISU Meyer now knows he has three starting pitchers in Todd Samuelson, Brice Dunshee and Jay Gladden. Dean Miller and Pursell are among a whole group of relief prospects. “We started out shakey,” Meyer said of runs given up in the early part of the trip. “Then we come up with two complete games, one from Dunshee and one from Samuelson.” Both pitched well against northern teams. MEYER KNEW THE southern teams would be tough, just being ahead of the Tigers was enough. And although it’s uncommon for DePauw to beat a Division I school, rarely are they blown out, it’s generally close. “They were division one,” Meyer said of Toledo, “But I thought defensively we played very, very well. And then the St. Leo game we played without an error until the catcher threw the ball into leftfield to let them tie.” But now the Tigers are back home again in Indiana. After Wednesday’s game with Indiana State, they’ll host Earlham Saturday in a 1 p.m. doubleheader. *** IF YOU LIKE baseball Saturday could really be a fun day in Greencastle. Beginning at 11 a.m. Greencastle will host Southmont in a varsity game and unless you want to watch the junior varsity contest that should give you enough time to make DePauw’s 1 p.m. game with Earlham at Walker Field. Putnam County high school baseball play gets underway in Greencastle and Cloverdale this week, North and South Putnam teams waiting until next week.
as the entire Villanova team, getting his 14 points on 7-of-13 from the field. He was his usual awesome self three consecutive slam dunks late in the first half but lithe, 6-9 Ed Pinckney aced Ewing out of his greatest triumph and grabbed it for himself. It was Pinckney, with five of seven from the field and six of seven from the foul line, six rebounds and five assists, who was selected the tournament’s premier player and who joined fellow seniors Dwayne McClain (with a game-high 17 points) and Gary McLain in fulfilling a dream. They had vowed as freshmen to give Massimino (“a father, a brother, a boss and a coach,” McLain had called him) a trip to the Final Four before they were graduated. “These kids are just great,” Massimino
Loss gave Washington police an easy night
WASHINGTON (AP) - An evening which began with cheers, high-fives, handshakes and toasts to a dynasty ended with disappointed Georgetown basketball fans filing quietly home from neighborhood bars and the campus gymnasium. Unranked, underdog Villanova ruined Georgetown’s expected victory party Monday night by stunning the defending national champions 66-64 in the NCAA basketball tournament finals. “What do you say when you lose a game you expect to win?” asked Maureen Maguire, a 21-year-old senior who joined 4,000 Georgetown students in the school gymnasium for the telecast of the game. “They (Villanova) just played a great game.”
Right off it appears Cloverdale could be the county’s best team by sectional time again. Sonny Stoltz and Craig Whitaker are back from last year’s sectional championship club and figure to give coach Ken Williams solid pitching. But after that who knows where the Clovers turn. GREENCASTLE HAS A lot of experience back with the likes of Pat Meyer, Mike Cooper, David Rushing and Ken Tew. Just how much Jon Williams will help after a year off remains to be seen. Pitching is the question mark for coach Stan Ward’s team. North Putnam coach Jim Brothers has Scott Hasty, Darren Haler and Chris Clovin back and with solid defense could develop into a contender for the North Montgomery sectional title. South Putnam’s season will depend a great deal upon how Greg Phillips pitches. Phillips and David Varvel will be tough competitors everytime they go to the mound and Trent Thompson and Tony Lewis won’t be easy outs at the plate. South’s annual weakness is defense and once again that’s a question mark. ONE INTERESTING SUBJECT brought up here before the season even gets under way, is the sectional. With the consolidation of Van Buren into Northview it remains to be seen what will happen with the Greencastle sectional. Cloverdale, South Putnam, Cascade, Danville and Greencastle are the five remaining teams. Now will the IHSAA bring North Putnam hack here, or will Northview come into this tourney? Maybe they’ll just leave it at five teams. Where will Greencastle decide to play the sectional? Last year it was scheduled for DePauw University’s Walker Field, but rain forced it to be moved back to the high school because of wet grounds, a problem that appears to be relatively solved. All of the sectional coaches last year wanted to play at Walker if at all possible, none liking the short fences at Greencastle High. Even coach Ward noted the small park has hurt the Tiger Cubs more than helped them, neutralizing their speed offensively and defensively. SHOULD GREENCASTLE DECIDE to play the sectional at Walker, and DePauw, willing to allow its use, the other sectional teams should try to play a game there beforehand. The sun is tough for fielders on the right side of the diamond from about 4 p.m. on and Greencastle will undoubtedly try to play there early.
told a post-game news conference, the emotion welling up and spilling from his eyes as he sat with his trio of seniors and sophomore guard Harold Jensen. They were Davids facing a Goliath and his army of sharpshooters. They were Rocky, real-life fighters from the outskirts of Philadelphia. They were The Little Engine That Could, panting, “I think I can, I think I can ... I thought I could, I thought I c0u1d...” Ewing’s season ended with the Hoyas a 35-3 team. The Ewing era at Georgetown ended with the Hoyas’ four-year record at 121-23. In barely a month, seven teams in the National Basketball Association will participate in a lottery for the first choice in the draft. The winner most certainly will take Ewing.
District of Columbia police also expected a Georgetown victory. Hundreds of officers fanned out along Wisconsin Avenue and M Streetn one of the area’s busiest intersections, two hours before the game started. They were expecting a wild celebration. “We have about as much of a chance of holding off these students as Villanova does of holding off Patrick Ewing,” one officer said. “We’ll give them M Street but we won’t let ’em have Wisconsin.” The students who filled McDonough Gymnasium on the Georgetown campus stood in line for hours just to get in, and raised a ruckus with every Hoya basket. But the tone changed as the Wildcats sank free throw after clutch free throw in the late going, the raucous gym turned quiet.