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When Sports Were Played: Stanley keyed Waynesburg’s miracle finish

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As Comeback Week continues in “When Sports Were Played,” we revisit an NAIA District 18 basketball tournament game from March 4, 1983. Waynesburg trailed Pitt-Bradford by four points with four seconds to play but still won the game. Two things to keep in mind about 1983: there was no three-point shot at that time and the clock did not stop following a basket in the final minute as it now does in college basketball.

WAYNESBURG – The most memorable four seconds in Paul Stanley’s basketball career to date took place here Friday night.

Stanley, a 6-5 sophomore forward with the toothless but friendly smile of a hockey goalie, unwittingly assumed the role of Walter Mitty for the Waynesburg College basketball team.

And because of his success, the Yellow Jackets’ basketball season continues.

Waynesburg advanced to Monday night’s NAIA District 18 semifinals with a heart-stopping 65-62 overtime victory over Pitt-Bradford. And the game featured what could be the most amazing sequence of events the district has seen in quite some time.

The yellow Jackets trailed 61-57 after Pitt-Bradford’s Randy Wade sank a pair of free throws with 13 seconds left in regulation. The Panthers’ bench started a wild celebration and in the confusion their point guard, Pat Jones, committed his fifth personal foul. It seemed to matter little at the time, as Waynesburg was one shy of reaching the penalty situation.

But it would come back to haunt Pitt-Bradford dearly.

With nine second left the Yellow Jackets tried to work for a quick shot, but senior guard Tim Tyler had the ball dribble off his foot. He recovered and shoveled a pass to Stanley, who was standing approximately 22 feet from the basket.

“I got a chance to square up and face the hoop, but my form sure wasn’t pretty,” Stanley would later say. It didn’t matter. The ball went straight into the basket, cutting UPB’s lead to 61-59.

Enter Jones’ costly fifth foul.

With Waynesburg having exhausted its allotted timeouts, the Panthers didn’t need to inbound the ball to win the game. But they did, and Stanley somehow intercepted the pass.

Then, to his amazement, Stanley was fouled by Jones’ substitute, Jerry Lawson.

The clock read 0:00 and Stanley was faced with a one-and-one foul-shot situation that meant cheers or tears for the Jackets.

“We tried everything we could do to shake him up,” Pitt-Bradford coach Dick Danielson would later say. “But he made them.”

And there was little doubt about either free throw, as Stanley’s heroics tied the game and sent it to overtime. The intense finish to the extra period, highlighted by a game-saving steal by point guard ray Natili, seemed pale to what Stanley had just endured.

‘Sure, I was nervous but I just tried to block everything else out,” Stanley said.

The loss understandably left Danielson distraught. He watched UPB rally from a five-point halftime deficit which saw Wade sitting out the final 13 minutes because of foul trouble. And he watched the Panthers lose their championship hopes twice, at the end of regulation time and in the final 11 seconds of overtime.

“Why (Lorenzo) Newsome would take the ball out of bounds is beyond me,” Danielson said. “He never does but instead he went after the ball like the score was tied. All we have to do is hold the ball out of bounds and the game is over.

“And at the end there (overtime) Keith Rolick was hacked from two sides, there coaches were up yelling for them to foul and they did. But it wasn’t called. Instead, they (Natili) got the steal.”

Natili, who finished with seven points in the game, sank a pair of free throws with five seconds remaining for the final score.

Tyler and teammate Tim Walker led Waynesburg (21-7) with 19 points each while Stanley added 18. Wade, with a brilliant second half before fouling out in overtime, led Pitt-Bradford with 23.

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