Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 8, 1994 TAG: 9403080162
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BOB TEITLEBAUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Hayfield had a choice of taking sudden death or a slow, torturous demise.
Hawks coach Brian Metress chose for his team to go slowly.
He tried a stall offense to head off William Fleming in the first round of the Group AAA boys' state basketball tournament Monday night at the Salem Civic Center. The Colonels, however, prevailed 60-40 in a score that doesn't reveal the true story of the game.
The victory puts Fleming into the state semifinals Friday night at University Hall in Charlottesville against South Lakes, which beat GW-Danville 56-52 in another first-round game.
With 5:33 left in the third quarter, Fleming's Keith Hampton connected on a 3-point shot to put the Colonels (19-5) in front 29-15. Then to everybody's wonderment, the Hawks kept the ball near midcourt and Fleming's defense refused to challenge them. Hayfield then held the ball for more than five minutes.
The crowd booed and razzed the Hayfield players for following orders not to attack offensively. Fleming players talked with each other, and the Colonels' point guard, Derrick Hines, who connected on all six of his shots from the field and six straight from the free-throw line, even had a conversation with Metress.
"He told me to have a great rest of the season and that he knew I'd be MVP of the state tournament," Hines said.
Said Metress: "I really told him we were going to hold the ball the rest of the game and that it would probably cost him the state MVP. I was trying to get him to come out and chase."
Fleming didn't bite.
Burrall Paye, the Colonels' coach, knew this strategy quite well. He's used it enough himself, including in 1988 when Fleming handed Patrick Henry's state champion team its only loss.
"I expected the stall. It's very hard once you play stall ball to go out and play again. If he had tried to play, it might have been a 30-point game. His team was geared for the stall," said Paye.
Metress said he did what he had to.
"We wanted to limit the amount of their possessions," he said. "We've played around with it [the stall], but we had no choice. If we run up and down, we get beat worse. We put our kids under tremendous pressure. They had to listen to the crowd yelling at them to play. But they realized we put them in the best situation to win."
Hayfield's Josh Abraham admitted that "for me being a senior, it was really frustrating."
"We're down by 20," he said, "and it looked kind of bleak. We decided we had to do it. We believed in our coach. Hey, they missed five [it was actually six] shots [in the first three quarters]. They've got a great basketball team."
Hayfield played deliberately from the start, but Fleming's man-to-man challenged them in the first half. The Colonels led 24-15 at halftime. The Hawks (21-5) were always at a disadvantage because Hines connected on two quick field goals to open the game.
Fleming had only three shots in the third quarter and made three field goals - all on assists by Hines. Hampton opened with a jumper. After a Hayfield turnover, he connected on a 3-point shot to run the Colonels' lead to 29-15 with 5:33 left.
Hayfield ran it down for a last shot, but Ron McCorn was called for an offensive foul. William Fitzgerald then made a jumper at the buzzer to make it 31-15.
Paye said he didn't believe the game was over at that point.
"They had three great 3-point shooters, and they only needed [to hit] six of them for the lead," Paye said.
Metress started fouling, had his team shooting 3-pointers and called timeouts to set his defense after the Hawks hit. The fouling proved to be futile, though, because Fleming's starters hit 19 of 20 free-throw attempts.
"Hines always had the ball, but Hampton beat us. We thought he was the weakest of the group," Metress said. "The biggest question is not how they beat us, but how they lost five games. That's how good they are."
Hampton scored 17 points. He made four of five field-goal attempts in the second half and seven of eight free throws for the game.
The junior guard said there was no problem, even though a miss played into Hayfield's hands.
"When you're wide open, it's not like you have a lot of pressure on you," he said.
Metress tried the same strategy against Fleming a year ago, but that game was much closer, with the Colonels winning 56-50.
"They're a better team than last year. Their roles are more defined," said the Hawks' coach.
Fleming is at the same point it was a year ago - in the state semifinals, where it lost to John Marshall of Richmond.
"I'm not excited. I just want to win it," Hines said. "Two games to go, but last year we came up short."
by CNB