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A roundup of the sports information of the week
BASKETBALL—LOS ANGELES settled the Western pro playoff with a 117-115 victory over Baltimore in the sixth game. Despite being held to five points in the first quarter by the Bullets' Wally Jones, Jerry West scored 42 points, giving him a fancy total of 278 for the series. In the sixth game of the Eastern series Philadelphia drew even with the Celtics with a 112-106 win, but two nights later BOSTON, in a 110-109 thriller, took the Eastern playoff 4 games to 3. With the Celtics leading 110-107 and five seconds remaining, Wilt Chamberlain got an easy layup, making it 110-109. Boston seemed secure until, on the throw-in from out of bounds, Bill Russell's toss hit a wire supporting the basket and the 76ers got the ball out of bounds. Hal Greer threw in, aiming for Chet Walker, 30 feet away, but Boston's John Havlicek raced in (page 30), slapped the ball down, and the Celtics were headed down-court when the buzzer sounded. When BOSTON met Los Angeles in the first game of the final playoff, K. C. Jones held Jerry West to a six-point first half, and the Celtics set a team scoring record for the playoffs, winning 142-110.
GOLF—BOBBY NICHOLS, with an 11-under-par 273 for 72 holes, survived a seven-under-par final round by Chi Chi Rodriguez to win the $75,000 Houston Golf Classic. Rodriguez and Bruce Devlin tied for second with 274s.
HARNESS RACING—Bill Haughton drove SMOKE CLOUD ($15.10) of New Zealand to a neck victory over favored Meadow Skipper in the $100,000 International Pace at Yonkers Raceway.
HOCKEY—MONTREAL and CHICAGO, second and third in the regular-season standings, won the semifinal rounds of the NHL's Stanley Cup playoffs. The Black Hawks defeated pennant-winning Detroit 4 games to 3. Their most decisive victory was a 4-0 shutout in the sixth game on a second-period goal by Ken Wharram and three goals in the last eight minutes by Phil Esposito, Stan Mikita and Bill Hay. In the deciding game Mikita broke a 2-2 third-period tie, and Eric Nesterenko added another goal five minutes later for a 4-2 Chicago win. In losing, Detroit became the fourth league champion in the last five years to be knocked out of the playoffs in the opening round. Montreal eliminated fourth-place Toronto 4 games to 2 when Claude Provost scored at 16:33 of the first overtime period of the sixth game to break a 3-3 tie. These preliminaries over, Montreal started strong in the cup finals with a 3-2 win over Chicago on home ice. After a scoreless first period, three goals were scored in less than three minutes of the second by Henri Richard and John Ferguson for the Canadiens and Bobby Hull for the Black Hawks. Matt Ravlich evened the score at 2-2 early in the third period. Then, although shorthanded due to a penalty, the Canadiens' Yvan Cournoyer scored the deciding goal after a skillful series of passes with 11:41 remaining.
HORSE RACING—Scoring a major upset in a field of Kentucky Derby eligibles, Isidor Bieber's FLAG RAISER ($17), ridden by Bob Ussery, led all the way to win the 1 1/8-mile, $92,650 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct by a neck (page 87). Hail to All came from far behind to place. Bold Lad, the 1-to-2 favorite and winter-book Derby choice, had no stretch kick and finished third.
Bugler ($15.60) of Darby Dan Farm beat heavily favored Lucky Debonair, a Derby hopeful, by a neck in the mud at Keeneland to win the seven-furlong $10,000 Forerunner Purse.
Fifth place was the best any of the six Kentucky Derby contenders could do in the $71,150 California Derby at Golden Gate Fields as William duPont Jr.'s PERFECT SKY ($22.20), running his first stakes race, won by 1¼ lengths over Terry's Secret. Favored Nasharco was third.
A three-horse entry trained by Hirsch Jacobs, AFFECTIONATELY ($3.40), Treachery and Petticoat, finished 1-2-3 in the $27,850 Distaff Handicap at Aqueduct, the first such sweep there since the 1924 Astoria Stakes, in which Harry Payne Whitney's Maud Muller, Mother Goose and Swinging finished in that order.
TENNIS—U.S. Davis Cup expectations got a boost when DENNIS RALSTON defeated the world's No. 1 player, Wimbledon Champion Roy Emerson of Australia 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 in the finals of the San Antonio Country Club Invitational tournament. Ralston paired with CHUCK McKINLEY to beat Emerson and Fred Stolle, the top Australian team, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5, for the doubles title.
TRACK & FIELD—In a triangular meet in Waco, Texas, RANDY MATSON, Texas A&M's sophomore world record shotputter, threw the discus 201 feet 5½ inches, better than eight feet over the NCAA record of 193 feet 4 inches set last year by Bill Neville of Occidental. The discus sailed past the marked target area, over a broad-jump pit and onto the cinder track. In the same meet he put the 16-pound shot 67 feet¾ inch. Only six men have ever broken 200 feet with the discus, and only one of them, Jay Silvester, ever made 60 feet with the shot.
The UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI distance medley relay team and the OKLAHOMA STATE two-mile relay team set meet records of 9:47.3 and 7:21.2, respectively, at the Kansas Relays in Lawrence, Kan. New Mexico's CLARENCE ROBINSON broad jumped 26 feet 2½ inches and triple-jumped 50 feet 6½ inches, BILL FLOERKE of Kansas State threw the javelin 266 feet 5½ inches and RANDY MATSON put the shot 65 feet 10¾ inches for four more Relays records. With wins in six events and a total of 7,008 points, PHIL MULKEY of Birmingham took the meet decathlon for the seventh time in 10 years. Other stars were GEORGE SCOTT, an Australian who runs for Oklahoma City University, winner of the 5,000 meters in 14:58.4 and the mile in 4:08.9, and JIM RYUN of Wichita's East High, who set a Relays prep record of 4:04.8 in the mile and anchored his school's two-mile relay team to a 7:42.9 clocking, a national prep school record.
Morio Shigematsu, one of a Japanese team of five, won the Boston Athletic Association Marathon in a record time of 2:16:33. His teammates took four of the next five places. Last year's winner, Aurele Vandendriessche of Belgium, was fourth.
WRESTLING—RUSS CAMILLERI of the San Francisco Olympic Club won in the 171.5-pound division and was named outstanding wrestler of the National AAU Freestyle championships in San Francisco. The MULTNOMAH ATHLETIC CLUB of Portland, Ore. clinched the team championship, and LARRY KRISTOFF, a heavyweight from the Chicagoland Wrestling Club, took fast-fall honors by pinning Jim Skelton of the 12th Naval District in 11 seconds. The other titlists were RAY SANCHEZ of Cheyenne, Wyo., 114.5; DICK SANDERS of the Multnomah AC, 125.5; CHIKARA MURANO of the New York AC, 138.5; JIM BURKE of the Olympic Club, 154; WAYNE BAUGHMAN of the Air Force, 191.5; JERRY CONINE of the Multnomah AC, 213.5; and Kristoff in the heavyweight division.
MILEPOSTS—CLEARED: BEN O'MEARA, the nation's leading trainer-rider of open jumpers, by Judge John Kurtz of Chester, Pa., of charges of cruelty to his horses at the Devon (Pa.) Horse Show last spring (SI, June 15, 1964).
HIRED: As head basketball coach at Holy Cross to replace retiring Frank Oftring, JOHN DONOHUE, for four years coach at New York City's Power Memorial High. At Power Donohue coached the country's most coveted high school player, 7-foot Lew Alcindor, who at last report had not decided where to play college ball.
HIRED: BEN AGAJANIAN, former kicking star of the New York Giants, to serve as commissioner of the Western States Football League. This is a semipro circuit centered in southern California and now negotiating with the NFL and AFL for a working agreement under which the WSFL would obtain taxi-squad members.
SIGNED: As a free agent by the Chicago Bears, 198-pound BRIAN PICCOLO of Wake Forest, the nation's leading college ground-gainer and scorer last year with 1,044 yards rushing and 17 touchdowns. Piccolo was ignored in the player draft.
TRADED: By the Green Bay Packers, Linebacker DAN CURRIE, their No. 1 draft choice in 1958, to the Los Angeles Rams in a straight player deal for Split End CARROLL DALE.
