The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1931-03-13

After getting into the finals Of the
18th District Basketball Tournament
held at Virginia beginning last week
on Wednesday and ending on Saturday
evening, the Ely High School team lost
to Eveleth Saturday evening in heart
breaking encounter
Thanked by about 1000 people from
this city, the Ely team took the floor
Saturday evening for the final tuSSle
for District Championship honors.
The Eveleth team was rated as a hard
adversary Notwithstanding the fact
that the Ely boys had the ball in their
possession the larger part of the time
and had an opportunity to make tIy
for the basket time and time again,
they were unfortunate in caging baS-
kets and lost the game by score of
IL to IA.
In the previous games leading up to
the finals in the tournament, the Ely
team simply could not miss. On Sat-
urday evening however, they simply
could not connect with the hoop. On
all the nights of play, Ely people
flocked to the Queen City and the
spacious recreational building for the
games Virginia was crowded on each
evening to standing room only as other
neighboring towns sent large delega-
tons to root for their home teams and
see the contest.
Elys part in the tournament is given
in connection herewith by Charles
Gallagher, who is writing the sports
column for this paper. Mr.. Gallagher
has the fracas doped out right when
he says:
Ely Loses to Eyeleth in Finals.
After coming out of a trance on
Thursday night to nose out Mountain
Iron by 10 to IL count and rout the
crack Biwabik quint under % to 16
count on Friday evening, the locals ran
into hard luck and lost the finals to
Eveleth after outplaying the hilltoppers
throughout the entire contest.
Despite the fact that we lost the
championship, the Ely team and Coach
Buckley must be given considerable
credit for their fine playing and fight
ing spirit all the way through the
tournament. 1t is a conceded fact by
everyone who witnessed the tourney
ON Saturday night that Ely had far the
better of the two teams as Ely's gen.
eral floor play gave them possession
of the ball great deal more than
Eveleth and Ely had an average Of
three shots to Eveleth's one. 1t was
not poor shooting either, that spelled
defeat for Ely. 1t was nothing but
hard luck as time after time Ely had
pot shots that rolled around the hoop
and then out. Several long shots also
looked like certain baskets but they
went in and then out and thereby lies
the tale of Ely's defeat. 1t was prac-
tically a repetition of the recent
Northwestern Minnesota game when
the latter team with some splendid
floor play could not make their goals
while the other quint sank goals from
any angle. BY this we do not wish to
take any credit away from Coach
Damberg and his Eveleth champions,
for they are a clever, shifty team,
with an excellent defense We also
wish to congratulate Eveleth at this
time upon winning their first district
basketball tournament
AS to the Ely players individually,
they had far more to show than any
OF the other quints. We win try to
give you few of the things the Ely
boys excelled in, in their positions.
Taking first the four boys who last
Saturday night closed their basket
ball careers for the Ely High school,
namely: Grahek, Nicholas, Krall and
TomSich
Grahek at center was easily the best
player of the tournament, in our mind,
there being no other man with the
general all-around ability of the Ely
pivot man Grahek usually got the
tip of for Ely and was a clever floor