Sunday, March 9, 2008

REGIONAL CHAMPS 1969




St. Mary's entered the District Tournament as a heavy favorite, and the three games played proved to be a showcase for the talented Raider team. Our opening game was against Holy Rosary, who had managed to slip by us twice in the regular class. But behind the fine shooting of Mike Haremski and John Looby, and the clutch performance from Ray Wickes, St. Mary's was not to be denied. We won 96-69. This was just the start of our revenge as the next game brought on St. Andrew's, a team that had given us trouble in both games so far this year.

With John Hansen and Mike O'Donnell showing their tournament experience, the Raiders put the game away in the first half, with reserves playing almost the entire second half, the Raiders recorded an 80-48 victory. The District final was played against a fired-up St. Joe's team. The outcome of the game was not decided until the final two minutes as St. Joe's burned the nets too often, but under the steadying influence of Mike Fournier, who threw in several clutch baskets, St. Mary's led almost the entire game and recorded an 83-75 victory. Thus St. Mary's added the first of a line of trophies that destiny seemed to lay in her path.

2 comments:

Jane said...

I have a story about that season. I was sitting in a training session at Williams (my employer here in Oklahoma) sometime in 1999 I think. The woman next to me and I started a conversation and we realized we were both from Michigan. When I told her I was from Saginaw she asked, "What school?" "It was a small Catholic school, I'm sure you wouldn't know it - St. Mary's."

"I think my school played your school in the Quarter Finals in basketball," she said. I went off - "OH MY GOSH - in 1969 and we were ahead by one point but the ref made a bad call and said our guy was in the 3-second zone too long. You got the ball, scored and we lost by one point. That was YOU??!!!" We both started talking and laughing so loud we disturbed the whole room.

I just emailed her because I forgot the name of the school (probably, I told her, due to the trauma of it all). She replied, "We had some awesome seniors on the team and '69 was the year they all graduated. My school's name was St. Martin on the Lake or just St. Martin's. Please be sure to emphasize how we whooped your a@#! :)"

Memories!...

girard31 said...

It was Detroit St. Martin and I think their big star, Jim Essian (?) played pro baseball.