The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1939-1949, 1941-03-06
Valley Fooled on
Strength Shown
by HIS HOOpsters
Sports writer says to not
blame mentors for poor
showing Of teams in the
lower valley
(By Dip Page)


Sports writers, coaches and any
number Of ardent sports fans have
still not recovered from the Friday
night consolation round Of the VAL
ley tournament played In Wapato.
First, the highly respected Toppen-
iSh Wildcats ate dirt when they
went down % to 81 before the fight
ing EllenSburg Bulldogs. Then to
top off the evening, Mckee crush
ed the last hope Of the southern
division, Kennewick, 80 to 10. This
left the rest Of the show in the
hands OF one class B club and the
three northern conference outfits.
There were very few In the stands
and none in the press box that had
expected either of the two clubs,
Toppenish and Kennewick, to get
the short end Of the deal. It brot
out the fact what many Of us sus-
pected in our more questioning mo-
ments was q reality and that the
southern division was in fact a
washout this season.
All Of the trouble can be laid to
Toppenish for misleading all the
fans by turning In a perfect record.
No one questioned this record. It
looked plenty good on paper and the
Cats were big enough and looked
as good as the feat they had ac-
comphshed.
Now it can be seen very clearly
what the score was and when the
statement was made that Pasco had
the worst ball club this valley had
seen in many q season, both the
writer and the reader should have
sat down and figured it out. It was
true and the fact that the Railroad
City Five finished the season with
three wins should have made the
dopeSters get down to working
things out. Another thing that
could have thrown some light on
the Set-up was the. close wins Top
penish was held to by Kennewick.
Here was Top-Hi with a full squad
that had been playing together for
three seasons, last year they went
through three rounds in the Valley
Meet, they had an average height
OF over six feet and they were fast.
Coach Ray Normile Of Kennewick
was having a tough time getting IN
shape to compete in the conference.
All he had to build with was Ray
Fries and Bob Smith, all the rest
were untried and green. AS though
this were not enough, Normile was
undergoing the first season as sem
Tor high basketball coach.
When the basketball experts
should have began to catch onto
what the score was, was after Ken
newick had held the Cats to one
point win and then following this up
by losing the second encounter by
merely two points.
The Wildcats were the only club
in the valley that had anything to
really start with, but 1t can be seen
now that they were washout. In
short the competition was nothing
plus.
Without catching onto its sig
nificence at the time 1t was made
couple Of weeks back, the state
ment that Kennewick would 20 far
ther than Toppenish in the valley
meet was not shot in the dark. The
Lions had the drop on Toppenish be-
cause Of one fact. They had had
rougher going than the Cats and
were used to trailing on the score
sheet. Under fire they were a much
cooler club and all this added up to
them being better tournament
team.
Just to show that the secret OF
the southern conference was not
discovered right up until the last
minute: three Of the valleys sports
writers covering the game crawled
under the seats when the Wildcats
went down and without waiting for
the finish Of the Kennewick game
they went out and hid under a damn
rock. 1t really hurts to see a club
that you thought had plenty on the
ball go down in defeat looking as
though they couldn't move a muscle
to help themselves.
Following the game with Mckee.
Normile told this writer that he
could make plenty of excuses for Che
loss, but that it wouldn't do any
good. What he meant was that he.
IKE everyone else, had over-estimat-
cd the power OF the southern con-
ference and / don't know anyone
who can hold that against him. He
realizes where the trouble was and
we know that he was practically
powerless to do anything about II.
The coach that is taking an un-
merciful beating by the downtown
lans as an upshot of the tourney. Is
Jim Wilkinson Of Toppenish. With
ms team coming through with no
losses for the conference season. he
and the boys were favored to go to
Town in the meet and were given a
b1g chance to go to the state tourn-
ament. When the cold facts busted
the Cats right in the fact, the town
hoop experts made themselves look
good in their own eyes by taking Il
out on the mentor. He is being
blamed for everything but holding
back national defense and the fact
that he went to Berlin as a member
OF the American team in 1886 NAV
be used to make him out a Maj
before long.
What this column is plugging in