SUMMIT VS. PLAINFIELD

February 15, 1997

Teams	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	OT	Total
Plainfield	8	11	15	12	6	52
Summit	17	15	4	10	7	53

If you weren't there you missed a cliff hanger. Let's start at the beginning. With injuries, sickness and some players previously assigned to the County JV tournament Summit was able to field only 6 players for this preliminary round game in the Union County Tournament. Missing were Beaumont, Burney, Curiale, Fiore, Bruce and Dana Proper. What's more Erica Berger had a major league bandage on her elbow. With the troops fresh they easily roared to a 32-19 lead at halftime. However, you could see the tongues beginning to hang out as they left for the locker room. Early in the 3^rd quarter Erica Berger appeared to hurt her bandaged elbow and she left the game and didn't see further action. So now we were done to five with no chance for subs. As the half went on the aggressive* play by Plainfield began to exhaust the Summit five. You could see the legs getting tired as rebounding became more and more difficult. You have to give the kids a lot of credit they hung in there. Plainfield just kept coming back. The last thing these tired players needed was an extra 4 minutes of overtime. The tired legs played a role in missing four free throws in a row in the last 90 seconds that would have put the game away. But overtime it was!

In overtime, two FGs by Proper, one by Kellog and a free throw by Kellog was enough for a one point victory. Finally, we broke the OT jinx. Let me tell you there were 5 very tired, but happy, players at the end. They had played about 16 minutes without substitution. A very gutsy win. Danielle Proper tied her season best with 18 points and Missy Kellog contributed her best of the season with 15 points.

*This was probably the worst officiating I've seen this year. There were at least 15 flagrant fouls that weren't called on Plainfield.