Concord Training’s Five Earns Class B Laurels
Athens Hoopsters Conquer Hundred
By George Springer
MORGANTOWN, March 20 – Concord Training School of Athens captured its second West Virginia Class B basketball championship in the last four years when it took the measure of Hundred, 47 to 40, before 5,000 fans at the University Field House this afternoon.
The last crown was worn by the Mercer Countians in 1950 when they defeated Kermit High, 61 to 57. This year Coach Joe Vachon’s Trojans won the southern area championship by nosing out Pax High in Beckley last week. Hundred took the northern honors with a triumph over Lost Creek.
Once again it was poise and height that brought Concord on to victory, not to forget the all-around and brilliant work of Capt. Jimmy Rogers, who gave his usual great performance and impressed the fans with his almost “professional” composure.
Concord counted on Mr. Rogers. He always came through, his three baskets in the third and seven more points in the fourth were the vital ones that spiked all of Hundred’s threats. Coach Vachon’s boys led in all the quarters. But in between times the scrappy Blue and White Hornets had chances to cheer by holding the edge on the scoreboard.
Concord Training made a faster start that they have been known to, but slowed to a walk in the second and third stanzas, mostly because of faulty passing and some not-so-good shooting. After trailing 14-10 in the first eight minutes, Hundred came up to tie the count at 18-all in the second on “Junior” Moore’s shot and then went ahead by a point on Perry Count’s gift toss.
Ronnie Redden drifted the entire length of the court on a dribble to return the lead to the Athens boys who preserved a one-point margin of 24-23 at the half.
Nerves caught both teams through a poor third in which Athens outscored Hundred 8 to 4, but in the fourth, with Redden and then Rogers hitting for baskets, the Concord Training youngsters pulled away.
C. F. Walker, chairman of the State Board of Appeals, presented the State Class B awards after the game, and Don Storer, along with Larry Tyree of Pax, were presented to the big crowd as part of the all-tournament team. Others making the squad were Rogers and Redden of Concord, Leroy Fouty and Higgins of Hundred, Bill Niland of Piedmont, Bill Poole of Lost Creek.
Source: Transcribed from the Beckley Post-Herald, Beckley, W. Va., Saturday Morning, March 21, 1953, page 11
