Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 11, 1992 TAG: 9201110247
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
NORTHSIDE RIPS RADFORD 79-60
Radford High School's boys' basketball team was better than it was the first time it tangled with Northside.Still, the Bobcats weren't good enough.
The Vikings (9-1) ripped the host Bobcats, particularly with their inside offense and relentless pressure defense, and coasted to a 79-60 non-district victory Friday night.
The score and Radford's play were only slightly more presentable than they were when Northside won 89-54 in the Bobcats' season-opener.
Vikings coach Billy Pope was magnanimous in victory.
"Radford is a lot stronger defensively," he said. "And on offense, well, they're at least three weeks better."
Radford (1-7) might have made things interesting save for a catastrophic second quarter. The Bobcats didn't score for the first 4:25 of the quarter, and Northside flamed through a 20-7 stretch that all but wiped out the Bobcats.
It was during that sequence that Northside post Walt Derey emerged as the game's most influential player. Derey scored nine of his 14 first-half points during the quarter, moving at will down low and gaining confidence with every basket.
Derey, a 6-foot-4 bruiser who was nothing more than a varsity bit player before this year, went on to score 33 points, his second career high in the past three games.
"I was posting up real hard, and the guards - Matt [Hill] and Aaron [Burford] and Kelly [Dampeer] - were getting me the ball where I wanted it," he said. "The guards had them spread out to the extreme, and that enabled me to go almost one-on-one on their post guy."
Typical of Northside, no one player was the whole story, though. Burford scored 13 points, Dampeer chipped in 11 and Hill came through with 10. And, it seemed, just about everybody who saw action threw at least one wonderfully deft pass. The guards threw a bunch of them.
Toss out the second quarter and Radford would have hung in there for a 59-53 loss. Not bad against a sixth-ranked Group AA team.
The Bobcats did so with some scrappy defense and a productive perimeter game that produced 24 points worth of 3-pointers. Chris Hairston, who had 24 points, and Duane Pierson, who added 21, each had four 3-pointers.
Radford coach Brenda King dismissed any discussion of moral victories, even the smallest kind.
"I told our guys that I saw some signs of things to come, but that it was time to stop playing for the noble cause," she said. "We can play with the best teams around. We need to start playing to win." \
see microfilm for box score