Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 5, 1994 TAG: 9403050193
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: M.J. DOUGHERTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
\ Watching the Blacksburg boys' basketball team play Friday night, several adjectives came to mind.
Deliberate. Methodical. Opportunistic. And victorious.
The Indians dominated inside and upended Gate City 51-49 in a semifinal of the Region IV tournament.
The victory propels Blacksburg (12-7) into the regional final at 7:30 p.m. today at Graham (15-7). The G-Men knocked off Lee 90-75 in the other semifinal.
It also qualifies the Indians for the Group AA state tournament.
The loss ended a 21-game winning streak, as well as the season, for Gate City (21-3), which had finished the regular season ranked No. 9 in the state Group AA poll.
After Blacksburg led for the first three quarters, the Blue Devils took the lead early in the final period and appeared poised to pull out the victory.
But then the Indians remembered the reason they had led by as many as nine points in the first place.
"A couple of times - when they got back in it - we came down and threw the ball away, turning it over, or shot too quickly," said Blacksburg's Ben Araman. "The next time down, we just settled back down and went back to what we had been doing earlier in the game."
What the Indians had been doing was running back-door and penetration plays to open the inside. They started doing that again when Araman scored to tie it at 41 with 5 minutes, 33 seconds to go.
A minute later, Jay Safford put the Indians in the lead for good as they scored on their third shot of the possession.
Another minute later, Araman got loose inside and the lead was four points.
And a half-minute after that, it was Safford's turn again. His short jumper made it 47-41.
"We saw all the big guys out there [for Gate City] when we came out [to warm up] and some people started getting nervous," Safford said. "I called the fellows over and said, `Don't worry about them. We'll take it inside.' "
Safford and Araman each took it inside for six points in the fourth quarter.
And the Indians needed all of those points. A pair of 3-pointers by Barry Wolfe brought the Blue Devils to 48-47 with 1:19 left. So the Indians ran some time off the clock until Araman cut inside for an easy basket.
Gate City missed a pair of shots on its next possession before Blacksburg's Tony Wheeler came up with the rebound. That forced the Blue Devils into a must-foul situation. And Mike Dowdy hit the front end of a one-and-one with 18 seconds left to increase the lead to 51-47.
The Blue Devils' Shannon Carter drove the length of the floor for a layup with 11 seconds to go, cutting the Indians' lead to two.
But it took Gate City seven seconds to foul after the basket. And even though Wheeler missed the front end of the one-and-one and Carter got the rebound, all Carter had time for was a desperation heave from half-court. It missed.
"The thing they did was control the boards - that was the key to the ballgame," said Sandy Blackwell, Gate City's coach. "I thought we had everything going our way at the end of the ballgame except they kept getting the rebounds against us."
Blacksburg outrebounded the Blue Devils 44-24. And the Indians' trio of big men each reached double figures in points and rebounds. Safford (6 feet 4) had a team-high 18 points and 12 rebounds. Araman (6-3) and Wheeler (6-2) each added 10 and 10. Meanwhile, Carter single-handedly kept Gate City in the
game. He had 19 points, six rebounds and three steals in the second half alone. He scored twice in the first 30 seconds of the fourth quarter to give the Blue Devils their first lead at 38-37. His free throws with 6:08 left gave Gate City its last and largest lead, 41-39.
But Carter, who finished with a game-high 33 points, missed three consecutive shots while Araman and Safford were putting the Indians back in front.
\ see microfilm for box score
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.