THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 7, 1997 TAG: 9701070436
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: ATHLETES OF THE WEEK
SOURCE: BY PAUL WHITE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 43 lines
On paper, the pivot matchup in Friday's Kempsville-Salem boys basketball game seemed too one-sided to even be taken seriously.
The top-ranked Chiefs featured Brian Bersticker, who's 6-11, weighs about 210 pounds and will be a North Carolina Tar Heel this time next season. The unranked, under-.500 Sun Devils countered with Kenny Knightnor, who stands 6-2 1/2, weighs 155 pounds only when he steps out of the shower and was playing junior varsity ball this time last season.
``People in school were saying `You guys are going to get killed and you're going to get dunked on,' '' Knightnor said. ``But I told them tonight's going to be our night. I insisted we were going to win.''
Where Knightnor got such unabashed confidence is still unclear. But his prediction was dead-on - the Sun Devils upended the mighty Chiefs, 62-61 at Kempsville.
Perhaps even more remarkably, Knightnor more than held his own against the future Tar Heel, scoring 19 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. Bersticker, meanwhile, scored only nine points against Knightnor's fronting defense, two more than his season low.
Salem coach Bill Cochrane pointed out that it took a team effort to slow both Bersticker and McKinley Ford, the Chiefs' burly 6-5 power forward who got only seven points Friday. Sun Devil forward Devon Horton cheated off Ford to help on Bersticker, and forward Dennis Freeman also spent time guarding him.
``The whole team stepped up,'' Knightnor agreed.
But Cochrane added that the main man in the middle was Knightnor, an unheralded player who simply understood that just because he wasn't big didn't mean he couldn't play that way.
``I've been waiting all year to get in a big game like that,'' he said. ``Friday, it finally happened.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Kenny Knightnor]
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