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Panther boys end Roseburg's win streak By DON HUNT Mail Tribune ROSEBURG - The South Medford Panthers didn't simply end Roseburg's 25-game home conference win streak on Tuesday night. They smothered it, suffocated it and smeared it into the Stewart Robertson Memorial Gym floor with a defense that would make the Pentagon proud. The No. 2-ranked Panthers held reigning Southern Oregon Conference player of the year Joe Newton to four points, forced 16 turnovers and held the Indians to 35 percent shooting from the field en route to a 53-36 victory before an elbow-to-elbow crowd of about 1,500. The win catapulted South Medford into sole possession of first place in the SOC at 8-0 and boosted its overall record to 17-1. The defending conference champion Indians fell to 6-2 and 11-7. "This has to be our best defensive effort of the year," beamed South Medford coach Dennis Murphy, who jumped into the arms of 6-foot-9 center Eric Fiegi upon entering the locker room after the game. "Every kid we put on the floor worked his tail off for every second he was out there. "We've been doing that all year, but we cranked up the intensity level even more tonight." Senior guard Ryan Heil tallied a game-high 17 points and Fiegi added 16 for the Panthers, who hadn't won in this gym since 1998. Brennan Garrelts paced Roseburg with 16 points, but he was the lone Indian player in double figures. Roseburg connected on just 14 of 40 shots from the field, including an 0-for-11 showing from the 3-point line, and worsened its woes by sinking only 8 of 15 free throws. "There isn't much room for error when you play a team like South, and we just didn't make enough shots to win," Roseburg coach Mike Pardon said. "They were double- and triple-teaming Joe (Newton), and we couldn't hit anything from the perimeter." The teams battled to a 10-10 tie after one period and were still deadlocked at 14-14 two minutes into the second as Roseburg, with the 6-8 Newton and the 6-7 Garrelts manning the middle, was able to dictate a slow pace in the early going. South Medford finally got the lead on a Fiegi layup off an inbounds play and pulled to a 19-15 advantage on a pair of free throws by Boomer Marshall with 3:58 remaining in the first half. That's when the game began to slip away from the Indians, and the spark that ignited the Panthers was forward Alan Johnson. The 6-4 senior blocked a shot by Newton, South Medford rushed the ball upcourt and Heil buried a 3-pointer from the top of the key. That made it 22-15. Roseburg's Josh Pust got a layup at the other end, but Johnson countered with a 12-foot bank shot, and Heil finished off the half with a layup out of South's delay game as the Panthers took a 26-17 lead at the intermission. "We had Joe (Newton) triple-teamed on that sequence, and I was able to block his shot from behind," said Johnson, who finished the game with eight points and four rebounds. "When Heil went to the other end and hit that 3, that was such a momentum booster. It was awesome." The Panthers stretched their lead to 33-21 on a 3-point play by Heil at the 4:59 mark of the third quarter, but they weren't out of the woods yet. Newton registered his only field goal of the game on a putback with 5.2 seconds left in the quarter that made it 37-27, and Garrelts sank both ends of a one-and-one 35 seconds into the fourth period that sliced South's lead to 37-29. No reason for South to panic, except that Heil sprained his ankle and had to leave the game just five seconds into the fourth, and with 6:27 remaining in the game, Fiegi was whistled for his fourth foul and took a seat. Suddenly, the Panthers were without their two best players. Garrelts converted another free throw on Fiegi's fourth foul, and now the Indians were within 37-30 with plenty of time on the clock and a partisan crowd revitalized. But on Roseburg's next possession, Adam Walport took a charge. At the other end, seldom-used Shaun Olson hustled inside for a tip-in in what might have been the biggest basket of the game. "I just went up for the rebound, got my hand on the ball and it went in," Olson said of his moment in the spotlight. Heil, who went to the locker room to put on a brace and have his ankle re-taped, re-entered the game with 5:10 to play. At the 3:29 mark, he got a perfect bounce pass on a backdoor cut from Marshall, made a layup and was fouled on the play. Heil's ensuing free throw made it 42-30 and it quickly became 48-30 as he scored twice more and Johnson added a rebound basket. By the time Garrelts shoveled in a board bucket of his own with 2:08 left, the Indians were down 48-32 and had gone 3 minutes and 20 seconds without scoring. The Panthers were happy as hyenas to snap the Indians' home win streak and happier still to have first place to themselves. "This puts us in position to win the conference title," Heil said. "Now, all we have to do is not screw it up." The way the Panthers are playing defense, that seems unlikely. SOUTH MEDFORD (53) - Heil 17, Fiegi 16, Johnson 8, Marshall 4, Walport 4, Smith 2, Olson 2, Lower 0, Fischer 0, Carpenter 0. Totals: 20 12-14 53, ROSEBURG (36) - Garrelts 16, Hall 6, Pust 6, Newton 4, Brundige 2, Krieg 2, Simone 0, Stembridge 0. Totals: 14 8-16 36. South Medford......................................10 16 11 16 - 53 Roseburg................................................10 7 10 9 - 36 3-point goals - South Medford 1 (Heil 1). JV score - South Medford 57, Roseburg 43. 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.