Strasburg Tigers Don Wallick snares another rebound against the Byesville Falcons in District play.
Strasburg Tigers Rock Van Fossen is ready to fire a pass to a teammate against Byesville Falcons.
Strasburg's great John Peters is all business as he lets go with one of his patented jump shots. Defending is Byesville's Jerry Coulter.
Tiger Vic Gessner, braces on both knees, fires away for a 2-pointer as teammates Rick Hall (44) and Don Wallick (hidden) wait for possible rebound.
DOVER - Talent-laden Strasburg (21-1) stands just 5 games away from its goal---the State Class A Basketball Championship---today following Wednesday night's "waltz" over Byesville (13-10). Bob Shahan's mighty men were much bettter than the final score indicates as they had a 15-point edge at the end of the 1st quarter and "toyed" with the Falcons the rest of the way, completely dominating play. Thus, the finals of the District will be an all-Tuscarawas County event as Stone Creek (14-8) meets Dennison (11-9) tonight, the victor going against the Tigers Saturday. Few, if any, of the 1600 fans who sat in Dover High gymnasium Wednesday night will deny that Strasburg has one of the best teams in Ohio. The Tigers shoot extremely well, play defense tightly and rebound with the best of them. They did all this and more against the upstart Falcons who returned to Guernsey County.
The entire "show" belonged to the Shahan-men including 10 wins in succession, to top last season's victory total by one. They made believers out of any doubters from the outset, banging in 8 of 11 action shots in the 1st frame---including 7 of their initial 8---to take a 20-5 margin at the stop. They led 30-17 by intermission and 47-29 after 3 periods. While the Tigers were sinking 25 of 60 floor attempts, their alert and harrassing defense limited the Falcons to but 17 of 68 for a cold 25 percent. Many of Byesville's shots came on tips as the smaller but battling Strasburgites led in rebounds 39 to 17. The board statistics are more remarkable in that the tallest Tiger, 6-3 Rick Hall, sat out much of the contest because of personal foul trouble.
But the other Tigers more than took up the slack, especially Don Wallick who took game scoring and rebound honors with 21 and 12 respectively. All-Ohio candidate John Peters, who took few shots, tossed in 16 tallies and steady Vic Gessner added 15. Peters, Gessner and Rock Van Fossen all came up with several good "feeds" in addition to playing well on defense. Ron Lab filled in capably for Hall. Byesville got on the board 1st when 6-5 Alex Repasky sank a charity toss. That turned out to be the only time the Falcons were in front; although, they did move to within 7 points with 1:09 left in the game. Wallick swished Strasburg's initial try, from the left corner at 7:16, Van Fossen made a 3-pointer, Gessner tossed in a foul and Peters fired in a 25-footer to make the score Strasburg 8, Byesville 1, by 5:49.
While the Tigers were burning the nets in the 1st frame, they bothered the Falcons so that they made just one of 20 action shots during the same time. Strasburg breezed through the 2nd and 3rd cantos and held a 49-31 margin early in the 4th when the Falcons began to show signs of coming to life. The Guernsey Countians tallied 6 straight points and after a couple of exchanges, trailed 56-41 when they came up with 8 in a row to move to within 56-49 by 1:45. But Peters, who seemed fully recovered from a broken nose suffered in the county tournament, calmly tossed in a pair of fouls and after a bucket by Repasky, the Tigers swished in 8 consecutive talliecs to ice the verdict 64-51 with 9 seconds remaining. Wallick started the latest rally with 2 charities, Van Fossen took a pass from Gessner (playing with braces on both knees) off the fast break and went in for a basket and Gessner hit twice from the foul line. Falcon Paul Parsons closed out the scoring with a fielder and a free toss.
STRASBURG TIGERS - 64
John Peters 6-4-16
Don Wallick 9-3-21
Rock Van Fossen 2-2-6
Vic Gessner 5-5-15
Ron Lab 1-0-2
John Thomas 0-0-0
BYESVILLE FALCONS - 54
Degenhart 3-2-8
Coulter 3-0-6
Hollingshead 1-2-4
Parsons 4-5-13
Alex Repasky 4-4-12
Singleton 3-7-11
Shaw 0-0-0
Thorngate 0-0-0
Thursday, March 5, 1964
Dan Kopp, Sports Editor
The Daily Reporter
Dover, Ohio
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