Westerner 3.7.4., Story 1

Attempting to gain their second win of the season over Niles West, Maine West's varsity cagers will travel to Niles Friday. In their first meeting with the Indians, the Warriors had to come from behind in the final quarter before taking a 58-49 decision.

The bucketmen looked as if they had finally snapped out of a month-long slump two weeks ago, when they outbattled Homewood-Flossmoor of the Southwest Suburban League, by a 61-55 score. After trailing 16-8 at the end of the first quarter, the Westmen came back in the second with 10 consecutive points to take a 28-27 halftime lead. Although the two teams stayed even in the third period with 13 points each, the Mainites finally pulled away to a 10-point margin, and only in the closing minutes was Homewood able to cut this down to six points.

Although the West offense hitting just over .333, was still not quite up to par, the defense did an excellent job in slowing a Viking attack that had the previous night rolled up 75 points. In particular, Homewood's leading scorer, who had been averaging more than 20 points a game, was held to seven tallies. Individually, Barney Franzen topped the squad with 15 points, followed by Drew Karkow with 12 and Rick Warnicke with 11. Forward Al Waters snagged 18 rebounds, almost half the number grabbed by the team.

On the previous weekend, the Warriors ended up with a split in two games, as they were surprised 55-43 by East Leyden and then came back the next night to crush

Deerfield 79-30. Against the Eagles, the Maine offense, still shaky after the close call with Niles, was held to just 43 points, as the Warriors hit only 25 per cent of their shots. Although Leyden held a three-point halftime lead, the Westmen came back in the third quarter to tie the score. But then, midway through the final period, the roof caved in. Leading by four points, the Eagles suddenly started to hit and pulled far out in front of Maine. By the time the quarter was over, they had scored 25 points to West's 13.

It was an altogether different story against Deerfield the following evening, when all 11 Maine players who entered the game scored at least once. Although Deerfield kept surprisingly close during the first period (21-11), they were held to six, four, and nine points in each of the remaining quarters. Deerfield put up a spirited fight in spite of the lopsided score, and as a consequence, lost three of its nine-man team on fouls. Three others were within one foul of being out when the game ended.

Leading the Warrior attack in its first 15 games has been Al Waters, with 183 points. The team as a whole has sunk 39.4 of its shots, and is shooting free throws at a rate of 64.4 per cent.

Coach Freeman's quintet now has only three games left this season. Next week the cagers will get another crack at East Leyden, when they host the Eagles on Friday. They finish up their Interim schedule against Glenbrook on March 2. The regional tournament begins March 5 at Prospect.