ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 16, 1996 TAG: 9603180046
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
The Group AAA basketball tournament semifinals were an exercise in disharmony for William Fleming High School.
The passes were a quarter-second late. The defensive positioning a fraction of an inch off here, a hair awry there. The jump shots were a half-an-inch long, the layins a smidgen too firm.
It was a visit to a dark dreamland in which the dreamer knew what must be done to save himself but could not summon the physical resources to react properly.
There was no waking from this nocturnal fright as the Colonels were impaled 81-61 by Hopewell's well-drilled Blue Devils in front of a large and loud audience Friday at the Vines Center.
Should the Colonels have been witness to their own game, the team dressed in the home whites would have been a stranger to them.
"That just wasn't us,'' said James Stokes, the Colonels' marvelous forward who closed out a first-rate career with 29 points and eight rebounds.
Hopewell was no team to run into with your game feeling a little icky.
"I don't think they were that much better than we are,'' said Colonels senior center Sterling Tate, who had a graceful close to his career with 20 points and three rebounds. "We just didn't execute the way we have been executing.''
There was no faulting the execution of Stokes and Tate, a twin-scourge to Fleming's foes no more. Each scored 14 points in the second half.
"We knew we'd be getting a good game from Stokes, what we were wondering about was who was going to show up to help him,'' said Marshall Ashford, Fleming's first-year coach
"Sterling had a very good second half.''
Stokes was limited to three field goals in the second half. Tate made six of eight shots from the floor after intermission, but the longer the game went, the tighter the Devils pulled the noose.
"I got tired,'' Stokes said "The underclassmen had to step up and they did all they could. This was on Sterling's and my shoulders.''
In the end, it was a lot to ask of the two 12th-graders. Stokes and Tate scored all but 12 of their team's points.
Hopewell, meanwhile, was getting double-figure scoring from four players. Monsanto Pope scored 23 points to go with a game-high 15 rebounds.
"They're a good team, very good,'' Stokes said of the 27-0 Devils. "They were very good getting back on defense. They were quicker than us all night.''
It was not a statement a Fleming player has had to make much this year. But then, it wasn't a Colonels kind of a night all around.
"I don't know what was wrong,'' Stokes said. "I really don't.''
LENGTH: Medium: 55 linesby CNB