The Price you Pay

There may not be a sadder story about Indiana high school basketball during the era of single class play than one about a small-town team with a sparkling regular season record who bows out unexpectedly in sectional play, especially if that team had the horses to go deep into the tournament. A prime example was the18-2 regular season Wood Memorial team from Oakland City. They came roaring into the Princeton sectional in 1971 as the hands-down team to win, only to meet a devastating defeat in the final contest.

Newspaper photos help capture that time and place but thanks to some recently found photos of that team taken by the senior class photographer, Steve Bottoms, you will be able to see in even more detail how that year’s basketball excitement filled the Wood Memorial gymnasium with teeming crowds of excited fans. As the season continued, the ongoing successes of the Trojans raised excitement and expectation into the stratosphere.   

I was a student at that time at Oakland City College, and I happily jumped on the cheering bandwagon, going to a few home games and keeping track of their season through newspapers. Having played on an exceptional small-town high school team in southern Illinois in 1969 made me even more interested and excited about the Wood Memorial team, their journey allowing me to relive a bit of my own exciting high school playing days.

Wood Memorial, formed in 1968 from Oakland City, Mackey, and Francisco, was still a small-town school of a little over 400 students even after consolidation. Despite their size, there were some recent histories of basketball successes. Coached by Charlie Brauser, Oakland City High School had run the table for a perfect regular season record in 1967, only to fall to eventual state champ Evansville North in afternoon regional play.

In the 1969-1970 season, Brauser’s Wood Memorial team won that year’s sectional, beating big-school Princeton and advancing to the final game of the Evansville regional, losing to a powerful Evansville Memorial team. The Wood squad had been an overperforming group that special year, an unexpected surprise with the least wins of the four teams at the Evansville regional.

Then came the next year, with some strong holdovers and tremendous expectations.  

The 1970-1971 Wood team caught its first attention from a regional sportswriter, the Evansville Courier and Press reporter giving the team a nice full-page article about the Trojans just before Christmas when the Trojans were flying along with a 7-0 record.

The Huntingburg Invitational Tourney followed the newspaper writeup, the games played in early January. Wood was much smaller in enrollment than Princeton or host school Huntingburg, but hopes were high in the Trojan camp. After winning by a single basket in their first tourney game against South Spencer, Wood Memorial mowed down host Huntingburg to take home the tourney trophy.

And the wins just kept on coming. The Trojans were taller than any team they would play, with senior leading scorer Roger Duncan at 6-7, juniors Ed Burns at 6-6, and Kelly Simpson at 6-4. Grant Lamar, a fine shooting 6-2 fine guard, could get hot from the floor at any time. Rod Davis was typically the fifth man.

It was Duncan who made college scouts take notice. One newspaper article reported on Roger’s great range, how he could hit with accuracy from underneath or 25 feet out. He could also stack up the rebounds too, and he made many sharp assists. For a big man, he handled the ball well.

By the middle of the season, it looked as if the Trojans might go undefeated. They were 12-0 and among the top twenty teams in the state ranking, moving as high as 16^th among the hundreds of teams in the state that year. They held the fourth position in the southern Indiana region, according to the Evansville Press. The latter poll placed Wood ahead of big schools in the southern part of the state like Evansville North, Evansville Central, Evansville Reitz, Terre Haute Gerstmeyer, New Albany, Vincennes, Jasper, and Bloomington, among others.

Then came the abrupt end to the winning streak. The Trojans traveled to Rockport to play South Spencer and got thumped. They came back the next night, however, to beat a strong Barr Reeve squad, an important feature of a strong team.

Wood Memorial would lose one more game in the regular season, at Mt. Vernon, a squad that had beaten several big Evansville schools that year— Memorial, Harrison, Bosse, and Reitz, along with Jasper. The Mt. Vernon game was away, a situation where traveling teams do not tend to get the good calls. Both Duncan and Burns fouled out of the contest.

When the Princeton sectional rolled around, the Wood Memorial Trojans stood at 18-2. Among those victories was a thunderous, sweet win over arch county rival Princeton, 80-62, the second game of that awesome season.

Experts believed the Princeton sectional would be won either by Wood, with their sterling record, or Mt. Vernon, a team that had beaten the Trojans in the regular season. Interestingly, these two schools had drawn each other for first round play, leading a sports headline to announce the battle as the “Highlight game” for the entire tournament. Big school Princeton, the host team, meanwhile came in with a feeble 6-14 record.

Anxious Wood Memorial fans swarmed into the Princeton gymnasium. The place was packed. Several Wood fans were standing once the game started. All were soon made happy, however. The next day the Princeton paper reported, “Roger Duncan, the Trojans’ 6-7 senior standout led the Trojan scoring with 30 points as the Oakland City machine clicked on all cylinders to avenge an earlier trouncing at the hands of the Wildcats. Grant Lamar had 12, Rod Davis 11, and Kelly Simpson 10.”  The Wood Memorial team was just as dominating on defense, “forcing the Wildcats to fire hastily from the outer perimeter.”

In Wood’s next contest, a semi-final game against an underrated Owensville team, the contest almost turned into a disaster when the Kickapoos went into a stall. The Trojans kept their cool, however, and won 39-33. Later, many fans came to believe that the unexpected oddity of that game and the Trojans’ bashing of Mt. Vernon the night before may have dulled their drive in the championship contest.

Wood Memorial was now 20-2 and one game away from moving on to regional play. Fan confidence was sky-high. Only Princeton, whom Wood had easily throttled earlier that season on Princeton’s floor and who had but six regular season wins, stood in the way.

Much of the damage was done in the first quarter, with the Princeton Tigers going ahead by 17-9. Wood was as cold as ice in the shooting category, their usual perfect playing rhythm thrown off.

Somehow, the Trojans hung in the game. They closed to within five in the third quarter and made a run in the fourth. The turning point, however, saw Princeton leading 39-36. The Trojans’ Rod Davis missed a shot, but 6-6 Ed Burns grabbed the rebound. His first attempt rolled off the rim, but his next try went in, the basket bringing every Wood Memorial fan to their feet.

A ref waved the basket off, signaling that Burns had shoved a Princeton player in his attempt to shoot. Coach Charlie Brauser protested the call and received a technical foul. After those penalty shots were taken and made, Princeton was up 41-34. Roger Duncan had just fouled out seconds before, and Kelly Simpson joined him a bit later, the game, essentially over.

For the next couple of days sportswriters attempted to explain the seemingly impossible fall of the Trojans and the success of the Princeton team. The Evansville Courier emphasized the hot hand of Princeton guard Dennis Bane, who had 27 points, along with the help of two quick guards, Jim Hardiman and Arman Nolcox. The other problem for Wood, the writer noted, was the fairly early fouling out of two of their main players, Duncan and Simpson. A Princeton sportswriter zeroed in on the tough first game Wood had to play against Mt. Vernon, the fierce play of the Trojans taking a major amount of physical and emotional energy. Then in the semi-final game Wood Memorial “had to win a war of nerves from a determined Owensville team lead by Charles Mair. It’s entirely possible that the bruising, nerve whacking night of muscle ball played Friday may have left it’s stamp on the Trojans Saturday night.”

When they did discuss the game, Wood Memorial fans talked quietly and not for long about the loss, as if the loss had been a sudden death of a relative and going over the details of how it might have been prevented was necessary for healing. Mostly, the fans just wanted to forget.

Time would take some of the sting from the loss. Roger Duncan would go on to play basketball at the University of Evansville, Grant Lamar at Kentucky Wesleyan, and Kelly Simpson at Oakland City College. Nevertheless, there would be no huge picture of a sectional championship team placed on the wall in the Wood Memorial gymnasium for this team, no telling stories over the years in local Oakland City coffeeshops, barbershops, or taverns of the glory of that season, no tales for grandkids about being on a sectional championship team. It is a reminder too that for all the joy of winning there will always be the heartbreak of loss when playing or following high school basketball, a price that comes with the game.  

As a final note, there was an upside for me when it came to Wood Memorial basketball that season. As I mentioned earlier, I was a student at Oakland City College during this time, and two years later I student taught at Wood. Thus, I became well acquired with the players and the rich basketball tradition of that community. I also have a vague memory of going to some of those high school games and noticing a cute little cheerleader. But that’s another story.