Bath Slips by Riders, 56-54
This is what ran in The Evening Leader 50 years ago today.
Any loss is tough just ask Ray Graves, the Roughrider coach, he’s suffered through 14 of them this season. But ask him what the toughest loss is, and he will tell you last night’s two point thriller to Bath at Shawnee’s Lappin Gymnasium.
One of the reasons it’s so tough is perhaps because the Roughriders had so many chances to win the game, but each time failed to have a break go their way, or threw the ball away.
Take the final few seconds, for example. Bath is ahead 56 to 54. Desperate, the Riders fouled to send a man to the line in hopes that he’ll miss and St. Marys will get a chance to come down and score. It worked, Kirk Anderson fouled All Leaguer Denny Cosart and he took his 70 per cent plus shooting from the foul one mark and promptly missed the first of a one and one and St. Marys got the ball.
St. Marys brought the ball down court. Dave Hausfeld fired a jumper with less than 20 seconds left. It missed. So did about three tips and rebound shots, by Steve Axe, Dave Wright and John Rammel. To use the old cliche, the basket had a lid on it and the ball hung but failed to drop. And that’s the way it ended.
It was a close game all the way, and it was also for the most part a turnover marred game for both teams. St. Marys had 30 turnovers and Bath 15. But Bath lost many scoring opportunities as the Riders dominated the boards. St. Marys rebounded the Wildcats by a 2-1 margin, 34-16.
The game opened with Bath jumping out to a 6-1 lead, the one being a Dave Wright foul shot. Dave Hausfeld hit the first Rider field goal and Kirk Anderson followed suit shortly thereafter to cut the margin to one, but Denny Cosart, as he would do all night, sank a bucket on a drive, then another from the outside to send it back to a five point margin. St. Marys continued to battle back and by the quarter’s end it was a three point margin for Bath, 16-13, and from that point on neither team would have a margin of more than three points.
Second quarter action found Dave Wright going to the bench early with his third foul. Brian Webster came in to fill the void. St. Marys continued to keep scrapping to stay in the game, and then with a chance to go ahead a turnover would crop up and put Bath back to a three point lead. Finally Ken Smith dumped in a field goal and the Riders held the lead for the first time 24-23 midway through the period, but it didn’t last long. Cosart, who else, put the Wildcats back into the lead and St. Marys never trailed by more than three either. At the intermission the score was 33-30.
Kirk Anderson hit a 20 footer against a Bath zone to open the second half play, but Cosart retaliated with another driving layup. Brian Anderson scored to cut it to one again, 37-36, and here comes Cosart again.
Again Brian Anderson connected to cut it to one, this time Nick George, Cosart’s running mate was the Bath answer. But then with St. Marys trailing 3936, they spurted and field goals by Dave Hausfeld and Steve Axe gave them a one point lead, 41-40.
Cosart and George nipped that in the bud though, and flipped through a field each to open the Bath lead to three again. An so it went until near the end when the Riders tied it up with Hausfeld and Axe scoring to make it 45-45 heading down the home stretch.
In the fourth period Bath had only two field goals, but netted seven free throws to out score the Riders 11-9 who went cold in that quarter. For the game St. Marys shot 22 of 62 from the floor for 35 per cent. Bath on the other hand finished with 21 of 54 for 39 percent.