ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995 TAG: 9512040079
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL UTHMAN STAFF WRITER
When a basketball team gets an 18-point lead in the first half, rarely will its coach storm off to the locker room at halftime in a huff.
Certainly not at Roanoke College this season, where the men's team was undefeated. But Saturday at the Bast Center, Maroons coach Page Moir got mad when Virginia Wesleyan got even, and for the first time this season, Roanoke lost a game.
The Maroons lost control in the 76-73 Old Dominion Athletic Conference thriller just as quickly as they had gained it.
``The leads have been coming too easy to us,'' Moir said after Roanoke fell to 4-1 on the season. A 23-0 run had the Maroons up 25-7 just eight minutes into the fray. ``We stopped going to what we did in the beginning. There were too many quick shots.''
And too many missed shots. Sixty-one percent shooting in the first half dropped to 40 in the second half. The Maroons were just 2-of-8 on 3-pointers.
Most notable were the Roanoke guards' shooting woes. Nathan Hungate and Jason Bishop were 0-for-4 from 3-point range and 4-for-11 overall. Hungate finished with four points, all in the second half, and Bishop had eight.
``Our perimeter kids in particular did a good job on their perimeter kids,'' Marlins coach Terry Butterfield said. ``I don't think they scored as much as they are capable of.''
No backcourt bombardier did better than Wesleyan's Gene Pleyo. Pleyo scored a game-high 21 points and made 10 of 12 free throws. That helped when the Marlins (4-1) were trying to protect their late lead. The 6-foot senior guard's team-high six rebounds didn't hurt either.
``He can be a little up and a little down,'' Butterfield said. ``Thank God he was up today.''
During a timeout late in the first half, Butterfield told his team to try to cut Roanoke's lead to five points by halftime. The Marlins did that.
By the 9:15 mark of the second half, Wesleyan had tied it. A 31/2-minute Maroons drought let the Marlins creep ahead 69-60.
Two of Wesleyan's top players, Percy Slight and Ryan Bradford, fouled out in the game's final four minutes to highlight the severity of the Marlins' foul troubles. The Maroons, however, did not capitalize at the free-throw line, making just five of their last 11.
The Marlins held Roanoke off with a series of offensive rebounds, too. Wesleyan outrebouded the Maroons 35-31 for the game.
``We ran our offense for the first 10 minutes,'' Moir said. ``They probably ran their offense a lot sharper than we did. Too many times our timing was off.''
Roanoke center Tim Braun was the catalyst in his team's early success, scoring 13 points in the first seven minutes. He finished with a team-high 19. Courtney Fitch and Jon Maher each had 11.
Wesleyan never had won at Roanoke in Butterfield's seven years as head coach. ``It's nice to walk out of here with my pride,'' he said.
``We're going to start bringing out the best in people because of the way we have played,'' Moir said.
At the start of this one, the Marlins certainly weren't at their best. They simply could not stop the Maroons.
``It was ugly, wasn't it?'' Butterfield said. ``When we came out like that, I thought, `What the heck is wrong with us?'''
``I knew we were a better team than we had shown.''
Roanoke visits Randolph-Macon on Tuesday night and returns home for a game Thursday against Eastern Mennonite.
NOTE: Please see microfilm for scores.
LENGTH: Medium: 68 linesby CNB