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Show Dixie Flyers Tip Cedar, Hurricane For Division Title and State Berth Staging one of the finest last half drives seen in the Dixie district high school basketball race in many years, Coach Walt Brooks' Dixie high school team climbed from the cellar midway in the race to clinch district honors hon-ors and a berth In the state tournament tour-nament Monday night. The Flyers shared cellar honors hon-ors as the first round of play ended, but starting with an upset up-set victory over the first place Cedar Redmen in the opening of the second round the Dixie team staged a drive that brought it into a first place tie with Cedar and Hurricane as the regular season ended. From that point the St. George team went on to win two hard fought games in a play-off series to capture the state tourney berth. The Dixie team threw the dis trict race into a three-way tie in the final game of the season bv upsetting the Hurricane Tigers Ti-gers 54 to IS in a game played on the Dixie home floor. Following Follow-ing this victory' a drawing was made for a three-team play-off. with the Hurricane team drawing draw-ing a bye, which pitted the Cedar Redmen against the Dixie team in the first game. The Cedar-Dixie game was played on the Hurricane floor .Saturday night, with the two earns battling right down to he final gun before the Flyers popped the game by a two point margin, 40 to 38. Monday night he Flyers met Hurricane in the J A C fieldhouse before one of the largest crowds packed into the spacious gym this season, and once again pulled a tough one out of the fire, winning by three points, 49 to 46, after Hurricane Hur-ricane had narrowly missed tallying tal-lying what would have been the winning points with five seconds left to play. Although the Cedar Redmen and the Hurricane Tigers fell before this final Dixie splurge, they are left with one more slim hope of getting into the state tournament to be played in the B Y U fieldhouse next week end. The Redmen and Tigers will tangle with the Parowan Rams and the Hinckley Mustangs in a region six tournament to select one more state tourney team from this area. The games will be played in the Parowan high school gymnasium on Friday and Saturday night. The game between Cedar and Dixie was a closely contested battle bat-tle from start to finish with Dixie Dix-ie holding a slight edge most of the way, and with some tough luck on their shots in the late stages of the game robbing the Redmen of a chance to win the game. Playing on the "crowded" Hurricane floor (crowded as compared com-pared to the B A C fieldhouse floor where the Redmen play their home games and do their practicing) definitely handicapped handicap-ped Coach Ray Englestead's Cedar Ce-dar team in the early part of the game, and Dixie jumped into a lead. However the Redmen came back to even the count at 10-all 'as the first period ended. Dixie fell behind in the second quarter, but rallied near the half and held an 18 to 17 advantage as the teams left the floor for the rest period. The two teams battled on even terms throughout the third period, per-iod, each seining 13 points, and leaving Dixie with a Ml to 30 point advantage. Midway in tin' final period ;lie Flyers .lumped into ,i five point lead, 37 to 32 'an.! then 3'.) to 31. and lo'ked Mke they had the game sewed tii). However, the Kednien rallied aiul with nearly three minutes left, closed the "gap to ?0 to 3 With the score still standing at that point the Redmen had at least five shots at the basket ir. the last minute and a half ol play, but just couldn't get the ball through the hoop. A foul .-,',101 by Ilafen seconds before the Same ended gave Dixie the two point 40 to 38 advantage. In the game Monday night the Hurricane players showed a reluctance re-luctance to shi ot throughout the game and this undoubtedly cost Coach Don Homer's Tigers a berth in the state tournament as first place winners. Time after time some Hurricane player would charge Into position for a clear shot at the basket only to pass off to a team mate and lose possession of the ball. And to cap It all, Steve Rozelle, the high scoring Hurricane star who played brilliantly, threw away a chance to win the game in the last seconds of play by passing off instead of shooting. With Dixie leading 37 to 36 and stalling stal-ling to run out the time, Rozelle stole the ball and raced for the basket followed by two desperate 'Dixie players, went into the air as if to shoot, but passed off instead. in-stead. The pass went into the hands of an opponent who heaved the ball down the floor to Scott Graff who scored just as the gun sounded to give Dixie a 49 to 4f victory. Had Rozelle taken the shot he undoubtedly would have connected or been fouled by the charging Flyers and received two foul shots and could have won the game either way. The box score of the Cedar-Dixie Cedar-Dixie game is as follows: CEDAR 31 DIXIE 40 C T V V ; T P I 7 :, 11 Mf'iins Mill's :i 7 10 f.u" Hafi-a I 7 ' M it li :i a W.'tisi.T R ll.ns.-n "J '17 11 J 0 i) t Ho nn't Wlttw.T Oil 1 '.' I 1 ." St.'ph.'ns.m S. Craft 2 -1 4 H I :i .1 Av.il.mn C Hansen n (I n 0 1 1 1 :t Lun' Sf(",'m!ller t) O o 0 i) 0 II I) Nuci;r Simmons u 0 O 0 HI '-'.') IS :w Ti .TAI.S 11 IS k) Sinn' by quarters: CeUr . . U) 17 .",0 ;w w is ;;i ) |