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Fiegi fuels Panthers past Cavers By DON HUNT Mail Tribune GRANTS PASS - Eric Fiegi faced practically every defense in the Grants Pass repertoire Tuesday night, but the South Medford senior center knifed through all of them as if they were silly putty. Fiegi scored 27 points on 13-of-18 shooting from the field and added 14 rebounds and five blocked shots to lead the No. 3-ranked Panthers to a 48-45 victory over the Cavemen in front of a big crowd at Heater-Newmann Memorial Gym. The win boosted South Medford to 12-1 overall and 3-0 in the Southern Oregon Conference, while Grants Pass fell to 9-3 and 1-2 in the SOC. "We tried everything on the face of the earth to stop that guy - man-to-man, zone, box-and-one - and nothing worked," Grants Pass coach Bill Cowell said of the 6-foot-9, 240-pound Fiegi. "Next time maybe we just won't guard him. Maybe that would work better." The Panthers needed every point from their blue-chip big man because the rest of the team had an off-night shooting. Ryan Heil was the only other Panther in double figures with 11 points, but he was just 3 of 12 from the field. "Eric carried us," Heil said. "When he gets in his rhythm he's almost impossible to stop, and he was in his rhythm tonight." But with no one else finding their range, the Panthers had to fight and claw for the win. Grants Pass broke away from a 26-26 halftime tie with six straight points midway through the third period to take a 38-32 lead. Senior wing Tom Cohen, who led the Cavemen with 15 points, scored twice on backdoor layups and senior point guard Tyler York banked in a 12-foot jumper to account for the GP run. Less than one minute later, Cohen drilled a 3-pointer from the baseline that gave the Cavemen a 41-34 lead, their biggest of the night. But Fiegi made a free throw and a 10-foot jumper to close out the quarter, cutting the gap to 41-37. Both teams tightened their defenses to start the fourth, but Heil sank two free throws with 5 minutes, 41 seconds to play and junior guard Matt Smith drained a 16-foot jumper with 4:23 remaining that tied the game at 41-41. Then, facing a double-team near the free-throw line, Fiegi fired a pass to a streaking Alan Johnson, whose layup with 2:05 left put South Medford ahead to stay. "They'd been doubling me all night and Alan was wide open on the block," Fiegi said. "All I had to do was get him the ball." Grants Pass went scoreless for the final 2:46 of the third quarter and the first 6:49 of the fourth - 9:35 total - before Bruce Voges sank a free throw with 1:11 remaining that trimmed South Medford's lead to 43-42. But with the Panthers in their delay game, Fiegi made two layups over the next 23 seconds that boosted the cushion to 47-42 and all but clinched the victory. A 3-pointer by GP's Kory Mahr with 3.1 seconds left and a free throw by Heil with 2.5 seconds to play accounted for the final score. "After they scored those six straight points I called a timeout and said, 'Geez, fellas, we've got to get some stops,'" South Medford coach Dennis Murphy said. "And we did. Our defense has been pretty tough all season, and it really saved us in the fourth quarter tonight." The Cavemen didn't get a lot of good looks in the late going, but they exacerbated their shooting woes by making only 1 of 6 free throws in the fourth period. "You've got to put some of those down in a tight game," Cowell said. "And we didn't." South Medford has now beaten Roseburg and Grants Pass - the two teams considered its biggest foes in the race for a conference championship - to start play in the SOC. Two nice hurdles to have cleared, Murphy said, but more loom ahead. "We're a long way from winning this thing," he said. "But it's nice to be 3-0 and have a win in this (Grants Pass) gym." SOUTH MEDFORD (48) - Fiegi 27, Heil 11, Johnson 6, Lower 2, Smith 2, Marshall 0, Walport 0, Olson 0, Fischer 0, Hagert 0. Totals: 21 4-11 48. GRANTS PASS (45) - Cohen 15, York 13, Mahr 9, Bailey 4, Minor 3, Voges 1, Draper 0. Totals: 17 7-14 45. South Medford...................................... 11 15 11 11 - 48 Grants Pass .............................................. 17 9 15 4 - 45 3-point goals - South Medford 2 (Heil 2), Grants Pass 4 (Cohen 2, York 1, Mahr 1). JV score - Grants Pass 52, South Medford 50. Reach reporter Don Hunt at 776-4469, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.