ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 11, 1996 TAG: 9603110063
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: HIGH SCHOOLS
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM
No matter how you look at it, William Fleming basketball standout James Stokes has been even better in postseason play than he was during a strong regular season.
Stokes is averaging 23.3 points a game in tournament play compared with 18.0 during the regular season. Even before his 40-point game Saturday night, when the Colonels outlasted J.E.B. Stuart of Falls Church 100-87 in overtime in a Group AAA quarterfinal round Saturday, his postseason average was 20 points per game.
In his past four games, the senior is averaging 28.5 points a game.
Having followed high school sports and written about them for better than 40 years, I would have to rate Stokes' performance as one of the best.
It reminds me of the late 1960s, when I was working as a sportswriter in Nashville, Tenn., and we picked the all-metro team in that area before the tournaments. Left off the squad was a junior center for a fairly successful program that did not win its regular-season title. The junior got hot the same way Stokes has, his school went to the state tournament in Knoxville and ran the field to take the title.
That player's name was David Vaughn. You may have heard of him or his son, also named David, who starred for the University of Memphis and now is with the NBA's Orlando Magic.
Fleming coach Marshall Ashford knows a good player when he has one. In the past few days, he's put in plays for Stokes and it showed Saturday as the Colonels set up the 6-foot-51/2 forward one-on-one against Stuart defenders.
``In the third quarter, they couldn't even contest his shot,'' Ashford said. ``He was rising up over them. He even amazed me. And he was also guarding their best player [Thomas Puryear].
``We put in a few new wrinkles to exploit his talents. We have a few other new ones for Friday night'' against Hopewell in a Group AAA semifinal Liberty University's Vines Center in Lynchburg.
In the final analysis, Stokes literally wore out J.E.B. Stuart's entire team. By overtime, the Raiders were wheezing running the floor.
Meanwhile, Stokes seemed to grow stronger. His dunk for the 99th and 100th points gave Fleming a Group AAA tournament record.
The game was one of streaks. Fleming went on an 18-1 run in the first half to lead 28-15 - and ran into foul trouble. Stuart responded with an 18-3 surge to lead 33-31. Then, the teams started swapping the advantage.
``It wasn't that enjoyable a game to coach,'' Ashford said. ``You sit over there, have a lead and lose a lead. But watching the flow of the game to see how hard the kids played and how hard they responded was enjoyable.''
While Stokes gets a lot of credit, Fleming's bench also deserves a share of the limelight. Rodney Morris, Percy Pannell and R.J. Reynolds were forced to play a lot because of Fleming's foul difficulties. They outscored Stuart's two men off the bench 14-3, which was amazing considering three of the Raiders' reserves saw significant playing time during the first half of the season when three regulars were ineligible because of academic difficulties.
``I told some of the players they'd have to go longer,'' Ashford said. ``If they got tired, they had to dig down deeper. They had to gut it out - and they did.''
Fleming's players also have had to deal with the turmoil surrounding coach Burrall Paye's abrupt retirement in the middle of January, leaving Ashford in charge and leaving many Colonels supporters shaking their heads.
``A lot of people told the kids they wouldn't do this or wouldn't do that. They said, `If you win the district, that will be as far as you go,''' Ashford said. ``But we lace up our shoes like anyone else and we had a chance to win.
``These kids refuse to lose. I told them [before Saturday's game] that this was the biggest game in their life to this point. If you win, you go to the final four, and if we win there, we go on to the biggest game of the year.''
LENGTH: Medium: 71 linesby CNB