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Show T-Birds Scare Ranked Rebels in Exciting Battle One of the outstanding sports events ever staged in Cedar City was witnessed by a jammed packed audience at the College of Southern Utah Memorial Fieldhouso Monday evening when Nationally Ranked Nevada Southern of Las Vegas squeaked by a de-tennined de-tennined CSU Thunclerbii'd quintet, 109 to 10(3. The Thundeibirds, who led the sixth ranked Rebels of Nevada Southern throughout most of the contest, fougnt one of their gamest battles in a losing effort but won the support of the fans in that effort. Capacity Crowd Playing before their largest audience since the days of the Dixie Coiiege-CSU bavtles, the T-Birds turned in a tremendous tremend-ous performance; proved to fans that they are playing a cilabre of ball equal to any, anywhere in the country, and loit them asking for more at the final buzzer. It was a fitting climax to the season for tile Thunder-birds Thunder-birds on their home court and fall, however, as four of the , T-Birds left the game via the foul route, and with those ejections the T-Birds lost their rebounding strength and the game. Pinamonti, Lou Christensen, John Carey and Mullen all fouled out of the contest as the T-Birds in their aggressive aggres-sive efforts to win the big one of the year, committed a total to-tal of 37 fouls. CSU nevrlheless did well from the field in shooting percentage to maintain an edge through a goodly portion por-tion of the game. The T-Birds hits 40 of 80 attempts from the field and Pinamonti was tops individually wth 13 of 21 attempts. As a team the Rebels had slightly over 4G percent from the field. Scoring Honors Miller was the top scorer on the floor for the evening with 35, but five other Rebels were in double figures. Pinamonti poured in his 33 and Mullen added 20 for the T-Birds, Mead, Bradley and Larry I of 19 from the field and con I nected on 8 of 8 from tin i foul line. Mullen was anothei spark in the contest as h( turned in a tremendous ganu on the boards and addoj it points. Pinamonti was the sec ond leading scorer with 15, Build Up Lead CSU broke away from a 31: to 37 halftimo margin to movi out to a 14 point lead at one point. The visitors . retailiated with a full-court press that nearly changed the complex-ion complex-ion of th-e game. Mead hit twi from the field and a pair on loul shots in the closing minutes min-utes to keep the visitors out of reach and the final victory CSU 92 Pinamonti 6 5 3 IS Moore 4 4 2 1C Carey 2 0 0 Mead 10 8 8 2 Bradley 2 3 2 t Christensen 4 4 3 11 Mullen 4 3 2 K Beck 3 2 2 i Turek 0 0 0 ( TOTALS 35 29 22 9: WNM 87 Moore were all in double figures fig-ures in the high scoring event. Saturday night the T-Birds walked off with a 92 to 87 victory over Western New Mexico in a revenge victory after losing to the club earlier earl-ier in the season. Skip Mead was the man of the hour in this contest as he hit for 28 points and turned the game j into a shambles. Mead hit 10 Olive 4 2 1 Clarke .". 5 5 4 1: Haack 7 5 3 11 Thomas 5 2 1 11 Schmitt 7 2 2 1( Blanchard 4 4 2 1( Robinson 3 0 0 ( Ray 0 11 Barnes 1 1 1 ; TOTALS 36 22 15 SI Score by halfs: CSU 39-53: WNM 37-50. it just might have been the turning point in CSU basketball basket-ball interest since the school has moved into th.9 four-year collegiate competition ranks. Dave Pinamonti of the Thundeibirds provided the vehicle by which the upset was nearly accomplished. Pinamonti went on a scoring spree, his best of the entire season, and he poured in a total of 33 points to lead the T-Birds in the battle. In addition ad-dition to his scoring he was saddled with the chore of de-fensing de-fensing the Rebels' ail-American Elbert Miller, and until he got into foul trouble came up with the most stellar performance per-formance of the two. Take Early Lead Pinamonti with help from Skip Mead, and Gil Mullen, with a tremendous effort on the boards the T-Birds took control of the early part of the game. Fouls prove to be the down- j CSU 106 Pinamonti 13 9 7 33 Moore 3 5 4 10 Christensen 10 0 2 Mead 4 9 8 16 Bradley 5 1 1 11 Carey 3 117 Mullen 8 7 4 20 Turek 0 10 0 Beck 10 0 2 Robinson 2 2 15 Livingston ' 0 0 0 0 TOTALS 40 35 26 106 'NSU 109 Trapp 7 4 2 16 Miller 13 19 9 35 Lyons 4 9 5 13 Chandler 5 12 8 18 Watson 7 4 2 16 Finlay 5 2 1 11 Plawski 0 0 0 0 Webb 0 0 0 0 TOTALS 41 50 27 109 Score by halfs: CSU 53-53; ' NSU 50-59. |