A roundup of the sports information of the week
BASKETBALL—NBA: In three championship games on two coasts, the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knickerbockers continued to play cliff-hangers to capacity crowds. The week started in Madison Square Garden, where the Lakers won a 105-103 squeaker to even the series, then everybody limped west where things really got tense. In the first Forum game, the score was 102-100 for New York when Laker Jerry West hit the shot of the season: a 63-foot one-hander, with one second to go. It put them all back on overtime, and in the five minutes that followed, the Knicks finally won it 111-108. The next game produced another overtime thriller, with West scoring 37 points and 18 assists despite a badly jammed left thumb, and the Lakers won 121-115. Even again. Next, east again (page 30).
ABA: Indiana and Kentucky split the first two games of the Eastern finals, with Darrel Carrier leading the way in the Colonels' 114-110 overtime victory and Roger Brown's 33 points putting the Pacers on top in the second game 121-110. In the West, Los Angeles and Denver also split the first two: a 123-113 win for the Rockets, then a 114-105 victory for the Stars. Earlier the Rockets had needed seven games and a few punches to beat the Caps and star Rick Barry in the semifinals—taking the last game 143-119 despite Barry's playoff record 52 points. The record crowd of 9,893 saw some boxing as well as basketball: Barry and Spencer Haywood fought out the last two minutes, with the latter being thrown out of the game.
BOATING—Roaring cautiously through the rough seas off Florida, Bill Wishnick piloted his BOSS O'NOVA at an average 51 mph to win the 200-mile Sam Griffith Memorial powerboat race, in a total time of four hours, 34 minutes.
BOXING—ARMANDO MUNIZ of the Army successfully defended his 147-pound title at the senior National AAU boxing championships in Trenton, N.J. when Fred Washington was unable to come out for the third round. Navy man QUIENCELAN DANIEL won the 139-pound division over Rudy Donato.
GOLF—Down from Ontario, Canadian GARY COWAN became the first "foreign" player to win the 70-year-old North and South Amateur Golf Tournament—taking his last four matches in 17 under par (78 holes). He beat ex-Walker Cupper Dale Morey 5 and 4, playing the last 32 holes six under par at the Pinehurst (N.C.) Country Club.
There they were: JACK NICKLAUS and ARNOLD PALMER, locked in a sudden-death playoff in the $100,000 Byron Nelson Golf Classic in Dallas while the golf world held its breath. The two giants had finished the final day's 36 holes tied at 274, with Nicklaus bogeying the 72nd hole for a final-round 71, Palmer firing a 69. But the agony ended quickly as Nicklaus birdied the first hole of the playoff and Palmer rimmed the cup with a 12-foot putt to lose the $20,000 first prize.
HOCKEY—The Boston Bruins skated to a one-game lead in the Stanley Cup playoffs, defeating Western Division champion St. Louis 6-1. The Blues had reached the finals by beating the Pittsburgh Penguins four games to two, winning the last two games after Pittsburgh had tied the series. Frank St. Marseille scored a hat trick in their 5-0 fifth win, and Larry Keenan shoved in a loose puck for the winning goal in the 4-3 decisive sixth game.
HORSE RACING—Robert E. Lehmann's DUST COMMANDER ($32.60) rallied under Mike Manganello to take the 96th Kentucky Derby by five lengths over favored My Dad George. High Echelon was a fast-closing third, half a length farther back (page 22).
After leading all the way, Locust Hill Farm's TYRANT ($15) held off Best Turn by a length to win the $55,400 Carter Handicap at Aqueduct, with Bobby Ussery booting him home in 1:21[2/5] for the seven furlongs.
Thomas McKoy Jr.'s KING OF SPADES, under Doug Small Jr., easily took the 45th running of the Virginia Gold Cup, finishing the four miles and 22 fences 15 lengths ahead of Our Ivory Tower in a time of 8:47.
Champion Jockey Lester Piggott won the first two Classics at Newmarket when he brought Charles Engelhard's unbeaten NIJINSKY (4-7) home to a 2½-length victory in the $102,072 2,000 Guineas—then drove Lady Ashcombe's HUMBLE DUTY (3-1) to a decisive seven-length victory in the $75,815 1,000 Guineas the next day.
MOTOR SPORTS—The driving team of Switzerland's JO SIFFERT and England's BRIAN REDMAN took the lead in the seventh lap and pulled away to win Sicily's 54th Targa Florio, scoring the fourth victory for Porsche in five races of the world manufacturers' championship series. Pedro Rodriguez of Mexico and Leo Kinnunen of Finland, who won for Porsche in the other three races, led briefly but finished second.
ROWING—PENN beat previously undefeated Harvard by more than a length for its second straight Adams Cup victory, covering the 2,000-meter course on the Charles River in six minutes, 16.6 seconds (page 74).
Princeton's varsity won its third consecutive Carnegie Cup, pushed by a favoring tailwind to a record time of five minutes, 54.2 seconds for the 2,000-meter Lake Carnegie course. The Yale men were only one length behind in second, with Cornell just inches away in third.
SOCCER—CHELSEA defeated Leeds United 2-1 in overtime to capture the Football Association Cup in Manchester, England (page 78).
TENNIS—England's MARK COX took just 74 minutes to capture the $4,800 first prize in the British hard-court open tennis tournament at Bournemouth, beating Bob Hewitt of South Africa 6-1, 6-2, 6-3. Mrs. MARGARET COURT of Australia retained the women's title, defeating Virginia Wade of England 6-2, 6-3.
Clark Graebner won the 36th River Oaks Invitational in Houston, beating Cliff Richey 2-6, 6-3, 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 to earn the $6,000 first prize.
TRACK & FIELD—For the second year in a row BYRON DYCE of New York and Jamaica was voted the outstanding athlete of the Quantico Relays. Running for the United Athletic Association of Brooklyn, he turned in a 1:48 half in the sprint medley to anchor the meet-record 3:20.3 win and the same day ran a 1:49.3 half in winning the two-mile relay. Earlier Dyce had run a 4:01.1 anchor mile in the distance medley and a 48.8 quarter in the mile relay. In the mile walk DAVE ROMANSKY of the Delaware Track Club surpassed his American record by almost 16 seconds with a time of 6:10.4—and was officially clocked in an American record time of 5:39.8 at the 1,500 meter mark. TOM GAGE of the New York Athletic Club obliterated the hammer-throw record with a 215-foot heave, with four of his five throws bettering Hal Connolly's old mark of 202 set in 1956.
MILEPOSTS—SWAPPED: The Pittsburgh Steelers got HENRY DAVIS, LB, and JOHN FUQUA, RB, for DICK SHINER, who joins the New York Giants, giving them enough quarterbacks to play a new one each period. In other off-season moves, Running Back DICK BASS, leading rusher in Los Angeles Ram history—5,417 yards in 10 seasons—retired (he hopes to become a disc jockey); Tight End JACQUE MACKINNON leaves San Diego after nine years for a Packer draft choice; 12-year Guard DARRELL DESS and Quarterback MILT PLUM were dropped by the Giants and JIM RICHARDS, safety for the Jets, heads for two years' Army duty.
HONORED: As the ABA's Most Valuable Player, Denver rookie SPENCER HAYWOOD, the league's leading scorer (29.99) and rebounder. Washington's Rick Barry placed second.
HIRED: As Harvard's first full-time assistant basketball coach, K.C. JONES, onetime Boston Celtic defensive specialist who had a 36-33 with Brandeis in his first coaching job.
NAMED: To the 1970 United States Davis Cup squad by new Captain Edward Turville, last year's heroes ARTHUR ASHE and STAN SMITH, plus CLIFF RICHEY, CLARK GRAEBNER, CHARLES PASARELL, BOB LUTZ and 19-year-old ERIK VAN DILLEN.
RESIGNED: After another frustrating season of trying to beat the French, U.S. Women's Ski Coach DENNIS AGEE, who joins Men's Coach Don Henderson in retirement—thus leaving all coaching spots open for the U.S. Alpine teams next year.
SLEEPING IN: Veteran Jockey MIKE SORRENTINO, after 24 years of early-morning workouts. He won 930 races including the 1963 Alabama Stakes with Tona at Saratoga and earned $3,253,784 over his career. Now he will rise late and work behind the mutuel windows in Florida.
