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9Saraye *M*ressesBy J, 5UTER KEGG Evening Times Sports EditorIf followers of the hit. Savage ■ High Indians decide to present their highly-successful basketball coach, Bob Kirk, with a. . gift at the end of the 'season, here's a tip: Don’t buy him a sport coat and expect him to wear it at the games. He just won’t do it.U’s not that Bob wouldn’t appreciate the gesture; he just happens to be Super.stUious.Ever since the former Barton High bomber became an Indian chief five seasons ago he has worn the same conservative, brown sport coat and matching tie to every Mt. Savage game. The narrow tie has gone out of fashion in the meantime but Kirk is not about to change. Missing from the tie, however, is an Indian head clasp which Bob lost.The good-Juek charms worked again last night at Frederick where the Indians went on the warpath to administer a 75*45 tomahawking to Smithsburg, assuring ml Savage of a fifth straight trip to College Park for the stale basketball tournament.Tournament experience, Smithsburg coach Don Stoner thought, was a big help to Mt. Savage in the runaway victory on the neutral Thomas Johnson High court. This is only partially the case because Mt. Savage started the season with not a single letterman from last year’s team that lost in the Class C semi-finals at the University of Maryland.The lndians; however, played like a tournamentteam last night-after they once got started, blowing Washington County’s Leop-pards of the court with an aggressive full-court press. But it took the Tribe five minutes and 13 seconds to put its game plan into effect.The scouting report Kirk had on the Leopards showed that they could be pressed and his orders were to do this immediately after Mt. Savage scored its first basket. Thai came on a Bob Connor eight-footer with a minute gone in the game. But the Indians forgot their instructions and didn’t get another chance to press until John Wolfe hit from the corner with 2:47 left in the opening stanza.Up until this point in the game, Connor’s bucket was the only ball that fell through in 13 Ml. Savage attempts. In the meantime, Smithsburg got field goals from Alan Snyder, Jeff Flory and Tony Chase, plus a free throw by Ai Marshall, for * 7-2 lead.But when Wolfe found the range, the Indians lost no time in making the Leopards change their spots. They forced the Washington Countians to turn over the ball len times in the first quarter and the swarming defense enabled the Indians to outscore Smithsburg by a whopping 17 to l margin in that short 2:47 stretch.There was no stopping the Kirk cagers once they broke the ice. After their horrendous l-for-13 effort, they did an about-face with 8 for 13 the rest of the first quarter and the outcome never ap-peared in doubt.JTVi.t/ To State TourneeICnn V litl a Ufoe 11 ^Ken Kline was sensational. He missed his first try from the floor but made 13 of his next 15 and wound up as the game’s leading scorer with 28 points. He also wiped the board 19 times to take rebound honors.John Woife played an impressive supporting role, hitting 11 field goals in 21 attempts and finishing with 23 points.“These are the two boys we look to for carrying our of-fense,’* said Kirk. '‘They are the only senior starters on our team.1* Kline and Wolfe are also the tallest players on the squad, each being just an inch ever six feet.Kirk said he thought “our kids played a tremendous all-round game. They’re an unselfish group, the player who is open being the one who shoots.”The teamwork is reflected in the statistics, just as it did in that big 40-38 playoff victory over Valley last Saturday night for the Allegany County championship. Mt. Savage doubled the^ field goals on Smithsburg and of the 34 Indian baskets, 26 came on assists. In the low-scoring victory over Valley, 14 of Mt. Savage’s 17 fielders were “assist jobs.”Stoner had nothing but praise for the Indians. “They played a great game,” said the Smithsburg coach. “We knew they could shoot and we knew after they got that big lead on us we would have to come out of our zone. 1 knew we couldn’t run with them and we could hav6 kept the score down had we stayed in the zone, but the idea is to win and we had to take thechance of trying to run with them.”Stoner said he had scouted Mt. Savage three times—in two of the Tribe’s games with Valley and in Tuesday night’s lopsided conquest of Northern in the District 1 semi-finals. “The win over Northern was so easy that I couldn’t learn anything from that one ” he stated. “But from what I saw of them in the Valley games. I thought we would have a chance if we could slow down the play. Their press, however, forced us out of our game plan.”Mt. Savage built np last night1* lead at the half to 35-20 and by the time the fourth quarter started it was 57-32. It was just a matter then of playing out the string to make the game official.Since being clobbered at Val-ley (90 to 58), ML Savage has run up eight straight victories, the biggest improvement being in the Indian’s defense. Over this stretch they have held the opposition to an average of 41 points per game.Connor was the onlv other 'Savage shooter in double figures last night, hooping ten. Bill Brailer the hero in the playoff triumph av«r Valiev with a buzzer basket in overtime, saw limited action in Jast night's contest. He committed his third personal with 48 seconds to go in the first quarter, sat out the second and fouled out with 2:58 remaining in the third frame.Mt. Savage, never beaten in district play during Kirk’s five seasons at the helm, now owns a 15-9 record and will go intothe state semi-finals next Friday at College Park. The Tribe's opponent, an Eastern Shore team, won’t be decided until tonight.Flory, who w«it into last night’s game with a 22-point Average for Smithsburg, *as limited to 12 by a ML Savage defense that double-teamed him. He was the Only Leopard in double fig. nrcs. Smithsburg finished its season with a 13-8 log.In spite of the shaky offensive start and a sub-par performance from the floor by Bill Kennel (2 for 18). the Indians showed a 43 per cent shooting effort. Kennoll helped to make up for his ineffectiveness in shooting with 11 assists, two more than the whole Smithsburg team.Mt. fUttg* KUrtt■»no. Weir4Crtnrtrtr ____ftrall^r , , KMAtllJ6t W’fSTI**1. SrtUtA . GitsonaFPRT2* 321906. 11-211- 13«034-U2- 629It).. J- 41- I5031- 11ftSO 0342.. 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Newspaper Details
Cumberland Evening Times
Cumberland, Maryland, US
Sat, Mar 07, 1970
Page 6
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MD, USA 04 Jun 2025
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