South Mountaineer Volume 32, Issue 23

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Volume 32, Number 23
March 16, 1990
Bethlehem, Pa.
Towson takes ECC title
Tigers defeat Lehigh 73-60
By TOM JAMES
South Mountaineer
Sitting in the bonus with more than 12
minutes to play on Towson State's home floor
looked to be the edge Lehigh needed in its East
Coast Conference tournament final against the
Tigers.
However, the Engineers' free-throw shooting went awry and the Tigers took advantage of
the huge crowd cheering them on to pull away
for a 73-60 victory and the school's first-ever
NCAA Tournament berth.
Lehigh, which finished the season at 18-12,
was looking for its third NCAA bid in the last
six years.
The Engineers were picked seventh in the
pre-season coaches poll and not many people
expected them to finish with more than 12 to 13
wins. The team's success even prompted coach
Dave Duke to call his team a group of "over-
achievers" in the post-game press conference.
The Engineers trailed 33-32 at halftime and
were within three to seven points for much of
the second half until Towson turned up the
tempo and Lehigh's foul shooting went cold.
Lehigh missed seven of its last eight free
throws in the game, including three one-and-
ones in the last 10 minutes. For the game, the
Engineers shot 57 percent while Towson was 17
of 19.
Leading Duke's squad, as they had all year,
were Bob Krizansky (Hazleton, Pa.) and Dozie
Mbonu (Philadelphia, Pa.). The sophomore forwards won election to the all-tournament team
despite encountering some tough times against
Towson.
Mbonu scored a game-high 23 points in
spite of 9-for-21 shooting and after collecting 14
points in the first two tourney games combined.
He had eight rebounds and three blocked shots as
well.
Bob Krizansky shot five-for-14, scoring 12
(after a 45-point weekend) with five assists and
leading both teams with 11 boards.
Krizansky said, "I felt I didn't play my
regular game. I put a lot of pressure on myself in
the first half. The shots that I had open, I tried too
hard to make them."
Also on the all-tourney quintet was senior
guard Scott Layer (Hatboro, Pa.). Layer had five
assists but scored just two points in the final.
The other starting senior, center Tom Martin
(Holland, Pa.), tallied eight points while junior
guard Mike O'Hara (Springfield, Pa.) added six.
The shining star in front of an ECC title-game
record 4,435 patrons and a national-television
audience was Kurk Lee. Towson's senior shooting
guard and the ECC Player of the Year led the
Tigers with 22 points and six rebounds. Lee led the
tournament with 83 points and earned the most
valuable player award.
"Kurk Lee is tough to stop, he hurt us in
transition," said Duke. "I thought we played
pretty good defense. We mixed in man(-to-man),
we mixed in box(-and-one), we mixed in zone and
I though we had him off guard for a while."
Three other Towson players scored in double
digits: Devin Boyd had 13 and earned all-
tournament honors, Kelly Williamson had 11 and
Mike Morin 10. Kennell Jones gave out six assists
to lead all players.
The bench, which has had much to do with
the Engineers' late-season success, made much
ado about nothing this night: registering nine
points, two rebounds, and one assist among four
players in a combined 39 minutes.
See BASKETBALL page 3
Bob Krizansky, who made the ECC all-tournament team and was a first-team AII-ECC selection
as a sophomore, swats a shot during tournament action Photography by young hong
Ruppel, Hartman win EIWA titles
By MIKE ALBRIGHT
South Mountaineer Editor
In a year that was filled with "What if's," Lehigh
University's 1990 Eastern Intercollegiate Wresding
Association Tournament showing had fans scratching
their heads and wondering what might have happened if
things were different.
The Engineers, despite boasting two champions
among five place finishers, were relegated to seventh
place (their worst showing ever at Easterns) due to some
key injuries and a young roster. Also, only two Lehigh
performers will be going to nationals, the school's
smallest contingent in many years.
Navy won it's 13fh team title with 131.75 points.
Syracuse was second with 91.75, followed by Army,
William & Mary and Wilkes in the top five.
Head Coach Tom Hutchinson saidhe very disappointed in the team's showing bat added mat the
Engineers did about what he expected with the lineup that
_^*_————. ..    i  —   ii
entered the tournament.
"I wasn't negatively surprised by
how we wrestled," Hutchinson said,
"fa fact, I think a lot of the guys looked
real good. Coming in, weh oped that
some of our freshmen would be in a
situation where they might place, and
that's what they did.
"A few other breaks and we'd have had one or two more
guys finish in the top six," Hutchinson added. "I wasn't
unhappy with our performance but seventh just isn't where it's
at."
Lehigh's performace had people wishing Solomon
Fleckman (Cape Coral, Fla.) would have been healthy enough
to give it a shot at 167. Fleckman dislocated his shoulder at the
Midlands Tournament in late December and never did return to
the lineup. He was expected to be back for Easterns but his
shoulder didn't heal to the point where he had maximum
mobility so he was withheld from the tourney. He was 15-3
when the injury occured.
At the same time, those fans were cursing fate after
two-time All-American John Epperly (Fairfax, Va.)
injured himself 10 days prior to Easterns and was not
close to 100 percent as the tourney opened.
Epperly, seeded #1, lost his first round bout to
Syracuse's Steve Trumpet* and then forfeited his
consolation bout, prematurely ending one of the better
careers in Lehigh history. He ends his career with a 72-
33-2 record, good enough for 12th on the all-time
Lehigh win list. „    .„____. „	
5 See WRESTLING page Z