Bloomington High School, The Gothic, 1918, Page 58

Description:	THE 1917-18 BASKETBALL SEASONThe Bloomington High School basketball team has had the most successful sea-son in the history of any High School athletic organization. In spite of the fact thatCoach Wells had the vacancies left by the graduation of Dobbins and the ineligi-bility of Ratliff to fill, the Purple and White triumphed in twenty-five out of thetwenty-nine games.To start the season. Coach Wells had Marxson, Rogers and Esarey from lastyears regulars. With these a first-class scoring machine was assured. As substi-tute forwards. May, Wells, and Wilson were available. The big problem was tofill the guard positions. Robinson and Crane, from the 1916-17 squad, were out.Norman and Prow, two new men, made their appearance. None of these men werelarge. Norman and Crane could play the back guard position, but both were midg-ets compared to the average back guard. Robinson, the only big man, and Prow,next in size, were floor guards or centers. After the first game, however, Nor-man, in spite of his size, was the unanimous choice for the back guard position,because of his snappy, aggressive playing. Robinson was easily the man to fillthe floor guard position. Marxson and Rogers, forwards. Captain Esarey, cen-ter, and Robinson and Norman, guards, composed a combination against whichno team could do grandstand playing. In the four games which this team lostthe winners had to play straight basketball. Wells and Wilson, forwards. May,center, and Prow and Crane, guards, formed a second team that upheld the repute-tion of the first.In establishing their record, the Little Giants had no easy schedule. Twenty-two games were booked. Five of the teams met had been State tournament con-tenders the year before, and with four of them return games were played. Fiveof the scheduled games were cancelled, but in their place our enterprising coachsecured four more, one each with Manual Training High School of Indianapolis,and Smithville. and two with Spencer. In the district tournament Bloomingtondrew the long four-game schedule, but won the meet by defeating Needmore,Smithville, Scottsburg and Bedford. In the State meet Bloomington again hadthe long, five-game schedule. The Midgets got into the semi-finals by defeat-ing Richmond. Martinsville and Montmorenci. In the semi-finals Lebanon, theState champions, managed to win from us after a hard fight.During the year Bloomington made 1,054 points, while her opponents scoredonly 470. Bloomington averaged thirty-four points a game to her opponentssixteen. The highest number of points made against her at home was twenty-three, and away from home, thirty-five. Both of these scores were made by Mar-tinsville. Bloomington scored as high as sixty-seven points at home and sixtyawav from home, while four was her lowest score. This was made in the Statetournament against Lebanon. The Purple and Whites record, for games won andpoints scored, is indeed an enviable one. Lebanon is the only team that has beatenher game record, while no team can boast of as many points as Bloomington.
Source:	http://cdm17129.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/hs-bloom/id/2874
Collection:	Bloomington High School

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