Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 28, 1993 TAG: 9302280183
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: M.J. DOUGHERTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
10-POINT SPURT VAULTS PULASKI COUNTY
Nothing turns around a basketball game like a little controversy.Saturday night, Pulaski County suddenly found itself trailing Franklin County with 4:39 left in their semifinal matchup in the Roanoke Valley District boys' tournament.
Then Pulaski County rolled off 10 straight points and went on to eliminate the Eagles 72-66.
Pulaski County (17-6) will play William Fleming - a 72-39 winner over Patrick Henry in the other semifinal - Monday night for the championship.
With the victory, the Cougars gained a berth in next week's Northwestern Region tournament. It will be their first regional appearance since 1984.
It also was the second time in eight days and the third time this season the Cougars beat Franklin County (9-12).
The controversy was over free throws taken by the Eagles' Robert Cooke with 6:42 to go.
The official book showed him having made one of his two free throws. However, the scoreboard, the two scorebooks kept by the teams and the four scorebooks on press row indicated Cooke missed both shots.
When the point finally was added to Franklin County's score, Cougars point guard Montie Brown was standing just past midcourt, waiting for the defense to come out and meet him. The Cougars, like everyone else, thought the score was tied at 56.
"We were just taking a little rest," said Pulaski County coach Pat Burns. "If they weren't going to come out and defend, we were going to take a little rest."
But with 4:39 remaining, everything changed. The officials called timeout to go over the scoring. After a five-minute conference that saw the three referees go over the official scorebook at midcourt, the score stood at Franklin County 57, Pulaki County 56.
"We had to go after them then," Burns said. "We couldn't even rest. I don't know what happened. We're up 56-53, they make a 3-pointer, there wasn't a foul and suddenly it's 57-56."
However, what happened after the scorebook incident was clear. In the first minute after the ruling, Pulaski County's Chris Foster twice penetrated the Eagles' defense for easy baskets, making it 60-57.
"I felt like somebody had to step up, so I stepped up," said Foster, who finished with a game-high 26 points. "Eric Webb, Montie Brown and Ty Hash got me the passes, and I worked the inside from there.
"And that [the scorebook problem] made us mad. We knew we had to win the game from that point. We knew we had to work harder to score."
The Cougars also worked harder at keeping Franklin County from scoring. It was more than a minute after the Eagles' last basket when the officials called time out to adjust the score. It would be another three minutes after that until the Eagles would score again, and by that time they would trail 66-57.
"We tightened the defense up," said Hash, a wing who also added 18 points. "We got after them on 3-pointers. That's all we did, play good aggressive defense. We boxed out on rebounds. We got in their face. And of course, we scored when we had a chance to take the lead."
For Franklin County, the Pulaski County delay game and the delay to review the scoreboard were enough to stall an offense that had scored 30 points in the first 10 minutes of the second half.
"Some might say they got mad; I call it momentum," said Eagles coach Calvin Preston. "I think we didn't do anything in our offense for a while. We stood around for about five minutes. We got kind of cold."
Carlos Holland led four Eagles in double figures with 17 points. \
see microfilm for box score