OCR Text |
Show The Thunderbird Monday, November 7, 1983 SUSC grabs title Page 15 nimisr Volleyballers defeat Highlands for crown by Paul Husselbee The Southern Utah State College Thunderbirds won their seventh consecutive Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference volleyball championship in a victory over New Mexico Highlands Wednesday night at War Memorial Fieldhouse. The victory gave the Thunderbirds the opportunity to participate in the NALA District VII tournament Friday. SUSC was eliminated from the tourney after losing two matches to teams the Lady Birds had beaten earlier in the season. Playing before a sparse midweek crowd, the Lady Birds came out and jumped all over Highlands early in Wednesdays victory. SUSC put on a display of offensive power, spiking its win. way to an easy The second game was much a repeat of the first. Led by sophomore hitter Jana Crawford, the host club attacked the net vigorously, giving the visitors no quarter. Crawford tallied a total of 1 1 five-gam- e 15-- 7 kills in the opening two games, against only three attack errors, to lead the Lady Birds, and SUSC took the second game, 15-- However, Highlands came back to get revenge in the next two games, and for a time, it seemed as if SUSC could do nothing right. We have had a problem with intensity all season long, Thunderbird Coach Joy Peterson said. When we get up two games to none, for some reason we let down and were just lucky it hasnt backfired yet. If we hadnt cleared our heads when we did, we would have gotten beat. Led by spiker Yvonne Torres, Highlands covered the entire floor, both defensively and offensively. The smaller, quicker visitors took advantage of the lapse in SUSC attitudes to even the match at two games apiece with victories. and It appeared Highlands might win its first conference title in years when the Cowboys lead in the jumped out to a rubber game of the match. 5 5 1 it Lisa Ballantyne of SUSC drives a spike over the net as a pairjjf N eui Mexico Highlands players defend. Ballantyne recorded 12 kills to help SUSC win its seventh RMAC crown in a row. Things began to look a little dimmer for SUSC when the visitors fortified that lead, opening the deficit to However, the Thunderbirds slammed the door on any notions of an upset. Defensive blocks by Paula Burgoyne, Lisa Stolk, Lisa Ballantyne and Gloria Grover put a stop to Highland scoring. 9-- Offensively, the Lady Birds rallied around the vicious spikes of Crawford and Colleen Hawkins. Down the stretch, SUSC played as well as they had all season, diving for loose balls and making the big play when it counted. After closing the gap to within two points, SUSC received the ball on a side-o- and Crawford went to the service stripe. On six consecutive service points, took Crawford and the the title, their seventh in a row, SUSC later played in the district tournament, and were downed in two matches. The Lady 'Birds ended the season with an mark in RMAC . record overall. plaV and a 8-- 1 23-1- 2 Kingsford named Montana hall of fame choice Former SUSC football coach honored in weekend ceremonies in Missoula Tom Kingsford, former SUSC head football coach and current golf coach, has been voted into the University of Montana Grizzly Hall of Fame. Kingsford, who led Montana from 1948 to 1950, was inducted in ceremonies Friday and Saturday at Missoula, Mont. He was one of 18 former Montana players selected to the Hall of Fame this year. The school began the honor program just last year. Three groups of inductees were honored during the halftime of the University of Montanas football game against Long Beach. Four members of the Old Gold group (who played between 1897 and 1927) were inducted, eight members of were honored, and the Sterling Silver group six former players from the Current Copper received Hall of Fame membership. Kingsford coached the Thunderbird football squad for 11 years. His teams won 5! games against 51 defeats in those vears. He has coached SUSC to more victories than any r coach in SUSCs history as a other school. The 1977 Thunderbirds went 2 to set an SUSC record for most wins and best winning percentage. Kingsford still holds several passing and total offense records at Montana. At the time the 1969 Grizzlies recorded a 10-- record, many of his records were erased. e records, five singleHowever, he still t.olds five season marks and three career bests. (1928-195- (1960-197- four-yea- d 8-- single-seaso- n 0 Tom King sford as a star quarterback at Missoula (Montana) County High School. single-gam- During his senior year, Kingsfqrd was named He was later drafted by the San Francisco s of the National Football League. The three rookie quarterbacks in the San Francisco training camp that year were Kingsford, Frankie Albert and Y.A. Tittle, The Korean War, however, intervened and Kingsfords professional football plans were canceled. He starred on Marine Corps teams while in the service. After being discharged from the service, Kingsford had a successful coaching career at Poison High School in Poison, Mont. His teams won 58 games and lost only eight. From 1964 to 1966, he served as backfield coach at the University of Montana. Just prior to the 1967 season, Kingsford assumed head coaching duties at SUSC. John T. Campbell, sportswriter at The Daily Missoulian in Missoula, reviewed Kingsfords career in a 1981 column. Campbell noted that Kingsfords football feats and records established make him questionably one of the finest Grizzly field generals of all time. One of the salient reasons for his e em. success is that he just simply would "Like every complete quarterback, he was perspicacious; he could read the defense and he knew how to keep it off balance. He proved in his prep days as he led Missoula High to football and basketball titles (that he was a natural leader.) The Kingsford had a natural gift to lead. Forty-Niner- out-cut- back-to-bac- k good-nature- d |