ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 13, 1997 TAG: 9703130058
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM THE ROANOKE TIMES
Glenvar-Floyd County this year is only the latest installment in some
long-running series.
For the fifth - and last - time this season, Floyd County takes on Glenvar
today in the Group A boys' basketball tournament at Liberty University's Vines
Center.
Unlike three of the previous four meetings, this game will not decide any sort of title. Yet, it will be their most important matchup because the winner will play for a state championship and the loser will go home.
Where did all this repeat madness start?
People might remember 1988, when Patrick Henry had to get past William Fleming for a fifth and final time on the way to a Group AAA boys' championship. That was the first year the Virginia High School League began taking a regional runner-up to the state tournament, expanding the field from four to eight teams and creating a quarterfinal round.
Many felt Fleming was second only to PH in Group AAA that year, but the Colonels never got to the state tournament because the two Roanoke Valley District teams were paired in a Northwest Region semifinal.
Fleming was the only squad that season to beat PH, which by the final meeting was ranked among USA Today's top teams. A defeat would have ruined a dream, but PH overcame Fleming's disciplined offense to win 56-49.
Until the state championship game, where PH beat R.E. Lee-Springfield 54-47, Fleming was the only team to hold the Patriots to fewer than 60 points. In four of the Roanoke schools' five meetings, PH failed to score 60 and twice the Patriots were held to fewer than 50.
The Colonels lost six games that season - one a 69-67 double-overtime loss to G.W. Carver, which won the Group A championship, and the other to private school power Oak Hill.
The next season, Radford and George Wythe, playing girls' basketball in the Group AA New River District, hooked up five times - the last meeting for the state championship. The Maroons, coached by Mary Copenhaver, won all five games and each was decided by five or fewer points.
``Radford is a tremendous club. That we've beaten them five times says a lot about our team,'' Copenhaver said at the time. The 56-52 Wythe victory in the final was the first time teams from the same district had met for the state championship.
Little did anyone dream this would be repeated a year later as the Bobcats went through six games to beat Blacksburg for the state title and win the series 4-2.
``It's harder to prepare for a team you've seen so much,'' said Brenda King, then Radford's coach. ``You keep wondering, `What if they show something different this time?'''
Perhaps the classic of all long series was the 1994 Salem-Northside duel. The teams played six times and would have met an unprecedented seventh occasion had Salem not survived with a 71-70 victory on the Vikings' home floor to win the regular-season title.
The Spartans won all six meetings, including a 63-59 overtime thriller in a Group AA semifinal.
This past fall, William Byrd and Lord Botetourt staged a similar series in Group AA girls' basketball. The Terriers beat the defending Group AA champions in the Region III final, then lost 51-41 in a state semifinal. At the end, Botetourt, which won the state title again, held a 3-2 edge and got the most important victory.
LENGTH: Medium: 67 linesby CNB