ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 19, 1996 TAG: 9602200011
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL UTHMAN STAFF WRITER
Ask a Hampden-Sydney basketball fan to make an Old Dominion Athletic Conference tournament wish list and right below winning the championship would be this:
Silence Nathan Hungate.
Neither will happen this season. The second wish might never happen.
Roanoke rallied from a nine point second-half deficit to edge the fourth-seeded Tigers 77-73 on Sunday in a semifinal matchup at the Salem Civic Center. The Maroons will face Bridgewater for the championship tonight at 7.
This rivalry hasn't bred many good feelings in recent years, particularly in the tournament. In the 1991 quarterfinals after the Tigers beat the Maroons 92-76, a Hampden-Sydney player said to one of Roanoke's starters, ``Have a nice summer.'' Sunday, those words were Hungate's.
Tension peaked a couple of times in this one, first during a Hungate-Ryan Sharp shoving match and later when Maroons forward Michael Ball said Sharp spit in his face.
``I don't like some of it, frankly,'' Tigers coach Tony Shaver said. ``I want it to be a positive rivalry, but sometimes the negative creeps into it a little bit on both sides.''
The Tigers blasted out of the intermission as seniors Nate Schwab and Ryan Odom scored their first 15 points of the second half. Meanwhile, Roanoke scored eight points.
But Schwab, who was 9-of-12 from the field and led all scorers with 32 points, didn't have a field goal after his jumper gave Hampden-Sydney a 54-45 lead with 14:01 to play. The Maroons switched to a 2-3 zone to put the clamps on both Odom and Schwab.
``Roanoke decided to make some other people beat them,'' Shaver said. ``The key was we didn't have the others.''
The Maroons had to do something.
``Schwab was killing us,'' said Page Moir, Roanoke's coach. ``At least we took the ball out of his hands.''
Turnovers and steals put the ball in Jason Bishop's hands, and for the first time in a week, he rolled with it. Bishop scored a team-high 21 points, 13 in the first half, and steadied the Maroons' offense when Hungate was on the bench with four fouls.
``My shot was feeling really good today,'' said Bishop, who was ill with the flu most of last week.
Hampden-Sydney (17-9) lost for only the second time in its last 11 games. Roanoke (21-4) has won its past nine.
The loud Tigers' cheering section rode Hungate the whole day. The Northside High School graduate's demeanor incited them as much as his play.
Although Hungate made just one basket, it came on a heartbreaking 3-point bomb with six seconds left in the first half and gave the Maroons their first lead of the game.
``They give me a hard time all the time,'' he said. ``They're always yelling at me, so sometimes I give them a couple of words back.''
In the other semifinal game:
Bridgewater 72, Randolph-Macon 68: Eagles forward Dan Shomo grabbed three rebounds and scored six straight points in a key second-half stretch as Bridgewater held off the Yellow Jackets.
Shomo took over with 5:55 to play and the Eagles up 55-50, scoring three baskets, grabbing three rebounds and snapping up a big steal.
``He was flurrying out there,'' said Bridgewater coach Bill Leatherman.
Shomo had 13 points for the Eagles (18-8), who were led by Craig Tutt with 15.
Shomo, a junior, played just 54 minutes in his first two years before starting the first 15 games this season.
Mike LaGuardia, the R-MC freshman who crushed Lynchburg on Saturday, tried to do the same to the Eagles by hitting three 3-pointers in the final 1:04. However, four Tutt free throws held off the Yellow Jackets.
The Yellow Jackets shot 32 percent in the first half. LaGuardia led Randolph-Macon (18-8) with 17 points.
NOTE: Please see microfilm for scores.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. Roanoke's Nathan Hungate looks to passby CNBwhile the Tigers' Elson DeVan (left) and David Hobbs defend on
Sunday.