ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997 TAG: 9703030123
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL UTHMAN STAFF WRITER
The Roanoke College women's basketball team wasn't picked to win the Old Dominion Athletic Conference tournament this season. Guilford was.
Roanoke wasn't the defending champion. Randolph-Macon was.
Yet, the Maroons won the 1997 title Saturday at the Salem Civic Center 71-62 over Guilford. It was their 11th crown in the 15 years the championship has existed.
``It never gets old,'' said Roanoke coach Susan Dunagan. ``This year is more special, just with the fact we didn't win last year and we weren't picked first. The effort we got from all 14 kids was unbelievable.''
Effort. Hard work. That's what this team has been about, right down to this final game of the ODAC tournament, when the Quakers harassed and hurried Roanoke for 40 minutes. Guilford forced the Maroons into 37 percent field-goal shooting and outrebounded them by 15.
``Anybody can shoot,'' said Roanoke forward Ashley McCallum. ``You've got to work to play defense.''
Guilford shot 38 percent, and invariably when it tried to make a run it was forced into one of its 25 turnovers. In the final tally, Roanoke didn't outplay the Quakers, it outdefended them.
``We were praying for the ball to go in instead of knowing the ball was going in,'' said Guilford coach Barb Bausch.
Saturday was the eighth time this season the opponent has shot a higher percentage than the Maroons. They have won seven of those games. They'll put their defense on the line again Wednesday, when they undoubtedly will be home for a first-round NCAA Division III Tournament game. Roanoke receives an automatic bid as the ODAC champion, marking the eighth consecutive year it has appeared in the tournament.
With this weekend's performance, the Quakers also may have earned their first berth in the NCAA Tournament. Ranked ninth in the South Region at the start of the week, Guilford has a good chance of getting in if the right teams ahead of them lose.
``People say we do,'' Bausch said. ``Who knows? We might see Roanoke in the first game.''
Saturday's victory was the Maroons' 14th in 15 meetings with the Quakers, who made their first championship game appearance. An 11-0 run put Roanoke up by 14 points in the first half. Although three times in the second half Guilford cut its deficit to four points, it was as if both teams were positive magnets. The Quakers could get close to the Maroons, but never could touch them.
McCallum said the game was decided when Laura Haynes, Guilford's All-ODAC center, picked up her fourth foul with 11:32 left in the second half. Even then, however, the Quakers stayed close, especially when forward Bari Nixon (18 points, 14 rebounds) was slashing to the basket.
McCallum had more to do with the outcome than she would admit. The William Byrd High School graduate, who usually only tries layups, scored six points on three jump shots late in the game. She pushed Roanoke's lead from four points to nine in a 1 1/2-minute span.
``They don't guard me unless I'm in the low post,'' said McCallum, who had 12 points on 6-of-8 field-goal shooting. ``They don't think I'm going to shoot it.''
Back in November a lot of people didn't think this Roanoke team would do a lot of the things it has done, including winning 22 consecutive games. But these Maroons did just that, putting them up there with the 1990-91 team that won a school-record 26 in a row.
After the game, when these Maroons looked up into the crowd while cutting down the nets, they saw six members of that 1991 team cheering them on, along with about 20 other former Roanoke women's basketball alumnae.
With their own ODAC championship to cherish, the current Maroons have renewed one of their college's most cherished traditions - winning the ODAC.
``The last two games we played last year were losses,'' Dunagan said. ``We couldn't wait to get started again.''
And again, Roanoke is the ODAC champion.
ODAC ODDS AND ENDS: The women's and men's NCAA Division III Tournament pairings will be announced at 8 p.m. today, with the men's selection show going first. It will be televised in Salem on cable Channel 18.... Two local players made the all-tournament team: Roanoke's Carrie McConnell (Pulaski County) and Amy Athey (Cave Spring), who also was the tournament MVP. Also on the all-tournament team were Nixon and Haynes of Guilford and Sallie Lefler of Emory & Henry.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON STAFF Roanoke College players Amy Atheyby CNB(left) and Ashley McCallum embrace as the Maroons celebrate their
ODAC women's tournament title Saturday at the Salem Civic Center.
color
see microfilm for box score