The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-03-16
BRISTOL FAVORED
 TO DEFEAT MAINE AFR. 1. TONIGHT
Westfield Looms As Obsta- cIe in Path of hillhOuse -Swaffield Chief Offi- cial

The Stearns High school basket. ball team of Milllnocket, Me-, q community with population less than 1000, will take the floor against Coach Tommy Monahan'i Bristol, Connecticut champs in the first game of the New England Scholastic Basketball Tournament at Newport, R. l., tonight with Q few daring to give the Maine team an even break in their tournament predictions.
 The Stearns team cannot this season even boast q claim to the championship of Maine after it's 31 to "A defeat by Winslow, the bas- ketball ace of the Pine Tree state and must begin play under the ter rife handicap of fatigue certain tc be caused by trip of 375 miles from it's home in the heart of the lumber country.
 Bristol, however, remembers well momentous occasions in national tournaments at Chicago when the national championship was born away by teams representing un- heard-of towns and the Bell City squad, cooler and more seasoned by far than the average good high school team, will carefully guard against any tendency toward over confidence. Coach Tommy Mona han has given his players only light work since their campaign at New Haven and is guarding against "staleness" and a slump such as those which caused the Bristol team to show none too well against East Hartford and Hart ford in two of It's Greater Hart ford invasion3 this season.
 HiiIhousc Faces Tartars
 New Haven Hillhouse, whatever it's success in the tournament, will know 1t has been in a real basket ball game, after its game with West field, Mass. in the opening round. The Hillhouse- -Westfield game will at once provide a comparison be- tween Connecticut and Massa ch,l- setts championship basketball. Hill- house yielded to Bristol in the Yale Tournament championship game by a narrow 23 to 21 score, and Vest field, with its 20 straight victories, esta blished it's supremacy in Vest ern Massachusetts beyond all doubt.
 Much depends upon whether the teams entered will be allowed to play in their accustomed style and the success of the Connecticut teams may hinge largely upon the off, ciating.
 The officials have been chosen with great care and indications are that both Hillhouse and Bristol will find their games handled in much the same manner as were their Connecticut games throughout the season. Harold Swafield, of Fair field, Conn.,, will be the chief ofil- cial.
 The Bristol team, if it fulfills ex- pectations in getting by it's first test with Stearns High, will again be q favorite on the second night or the tournament when 1t will meet either Berlin, N. H., or DeLasalle Academy, of Newport.
 Chick Bowen's Hillhouse players found the dice against them at the first cast, drawing a place In the lower half of the bracket where both Fitchburg, the only former New England tournament winner, and the fiashy Westfield team loom as formidable obstacles.
 OrIcans Travels 300 Miles
 Bristol, Hillhousc and Westfleld, will fare evenly in the fatigue or travel. Hillhouse is to leave this morning by train while Coach Tom. my Monahan's Bristol squad will make the jaunt by bus.
 Orleans, the Vermont team, must cover 300 tiring miles, travelling nearly from the Canadian border, before its first tournament game. Orleans team IS recruited from small Class E high school In a town of little more than 1000 inhabitants and must knock the dope-bucket sky-high to topple the Fitchburg squad which is one of q long series of crack basketball teams.
 Berlin, New Hampshire's repre- sentative, must also accomplish an upset to get far in the tournament. Rerlin, like the Stearns team Of Millinocket, Me. had to bow to an other team in it's own state, losing to Grovetown high, Class B winner, in a game for the mythical cham pionship of New Hampshire.
 Berlin also took a 50 to l9 drub-' ping from Winslow, the crack Maine team which turned back Stearns, Winslow, fortunately per haps. for Bristol Hillhouse, Fitch- burg and Westfleld, was not al- lowed to participate in this sea- sons New England Tournament. DeLaSalle Academy, of Newport, was adjudged the best of poor crop of teams in Rhode Island and must also engineer q surprise to survive the first and second rounds.