55 - Right Down The Line

Thursday, March 10, 1955
The Daily Reporter


THERE WAS ANOTHER CLOSE BALL GAME at Memorial Hall last night and once again - for the 11,000th time - who was blamed for the Flushing Orioles' defeat?  Why of course the referees naturally!  We heard one fan - not from the Orioles - go so far as to say that the referees deliberately reversed their tactics in the last half.  This fan had it all doped out that the refs favored Flushing in the 1st half and the Baltic Eagles in the last.

There were fouls missed!  We disagreed with calls made!  But then we did all during the season!  Not just last night!  Any way you slice it the game wasn't won or lost by the officials.

LET'S GIVE SOME CREDIT where credit is due.  We personally think it was a tremendous effort by a fighting Eagles ball club.  The Orange and Black has been playing some fiery ball of late and Baltic won last night on their own merits.  If one were to scan the game on movies - (unfortunately there are none available) - it wouldn't be very hard to spot the defensive lapses that permitted the Eagles to score a good many of its field goals.

Baltic came up with a "whale" of a scrap to turn in the victory.  They needed it to defeat a very good Orioles ball club which relied heavily upon the scoring potential of one man, 6-5 Senior Carter Howell.  The Eagles made quite a few free throw shots.  A total of 25.  But let's go back and notice that Baltic has been doing this right through the tournament.  They made 22 against the Big Prairie-Lakeville Bulldogs, 26 against the Dover St. Joseph Ramblers, 18 against the Gnadenhutten Indians, 23 against the Tuscarawas Broncos, 17 in the Bolivar Cardinals game, 23 in the win over the Sugarcreek-Shanesville Pirates and only 10 in the defeat by the Indians.  Gnaden had 27 in that game.

IF THE STRASBURG TIGERS needed more incentive than they now have to win tonight's tilt against the Yorkville Ductillites, they need only remember that it was a Ductillite team that knocked a Strasburg quintet out of the District title at Steubenville back in 1950.  The Ducats hasn't had a team in the District meet since winning the title that year.  Strangely enough, Strasburg was the team that kayoed a strong Scio Panthers combination that had gone undefeated up to that point.

Scio's Bob Hugh and Glen Bower were potting anywhere from 30 to 50 points a game for the Panthers that year when the Tigers caught Scio at Steubenville and pinned them.  Senior Henry Josefczyk at 6-4 and Junior Ed Baran of Yorkville have been the "one two" punch that has kept the Ductillites in contention thus far through the tournaments.  The 2 are said to be the trigger men in the Ducats' attack.  Just how potent a wallop the duo packs remains to be seen.

STARS OF THE FUTURE.  That's what George Elford's 6th Street Basketball Players were called by many after they put on a dribbling, passing and shooting show at Memorial Hall prior to the Fllushing-Baltic exciter.  The 7 pint-sized basketball players staged a polished exhibition and convinced many of those present that they'll be a classy club when they get up into the high school ranks.

Only the future will tell whether this will be true, but Elford has done a great job in molding the lads into such a poised group.  If the lads can perform for a crowd like that now they'll not be rattled later on before such turnouts as have been attending Dover High games.  The lads are Don Fox, Curt Ray, Phil Brewer, Jake Hammond, Cal Woods, Bill Levengood and Jim Trotter.  Keep watching for those names, you may hear them again within the next few years.