Nylon Strokers upset Five Reasons Your Girl Left You 21-19 to claim Bookstore title
By KATHLEEN O'BRIEN
Senior Staff Writer
The glass slipper turned out to be a perfect fit for the Nylon Strokers, as the sixth-ranked squad finished its Cinderella run through Bookstore Basketball 2001 with a 21-19 upset Sunday of No. 1 Five Reasons Your Girl Left You.
"This has been a dream since freshman year," said the Nylon Strokers' Brian Oleniczak, a senior.
Nylon Strokers entered the championship game a heavy underdog. Five Reasons, with four seniors on its squad, had rolled through the tournament, not giving up more than seven points until Friday's quarterfinals. Nylon Strokers had fought through tough games from the round of 64 on.
"Every single game since 64 has been a battle for us," said Oleniczak, "but we just persevered through it all. I don't think anybody really expected us to win."
But the Nylon Strokers sprinted out to a 7-2 start. Their shooting was so on that the basket seemed to have a magnet pulling the ball through the hoop.
The Nylon Strokers were dead on in their goal of expanding their offense beyond tournament MVP Al Vitter, who scored nine points in the semifinals win over Versatility.
"He's pretty damn good," Chris Conway said Saturday of Vitter, "but we just want to make sure it's not just him all the time. We want to get everyone involved."
The Nylon Strokers did that Sunday. Conway scored the first basket and Irish football player Courtney Watson layed in the second basket on the breakaway. Vitter then hit a jumper, but former football walkon Oleniczak scored the next three baskets — a long jump shot, a breakaway basket and a layup.
As on as the Nylon Strokers were from the field in the finals, Five Reasons' hoop had a protective seal over it in the early going. All the shots normally made by the strong shooting team rimmed out, bounced the wrong way or rolled around the rim and fell to the side.
"We just came out slow," said Five Reasons' Dan Lustig, a first-team all-tournament selection. "We couldn't hit anything. When you're not making anything, you never get a flow, you never catch a groove."
At halftime, the Nylon Strokers led 11-5, but Five Reasons battled back. The top-ranked team pulled as close as 14-9 after a Lustig jump shot and Paul Raih basket in the lane.
Vitter killed Five Reasons' momentum by knocking down a jump shot. Oleniczak pushed his team ahead 16-9 with a basket, with the game looking all but out of reach for Five Reasons.
After the score went to 17-10 Nylon Strokers, Five Reasons began what was almost the biggest comeback of the tourney, with Pete Ryan leading the surge.
The Nylon Strokers committed their 10th foul, sending Ryan to the free throw line, who knocked down the shot. Lustig swiped the ball from Nylon Strokers, launching it ahead to Ryan for a basket. A minute later, Ryan dropped in a hook shot. Lustig returned to his shooting form of the semifinals by hitting a long jumper. After a Nylon Strokers travel and foul, Ryan made another free throw to put the score at 17-15.
"We just wanted to chip away at the lead," said Raih. "We said we weren't going to go down without a fight, because we hadn't really played our best."
Five Reasons held Nylon Strokers scoreless on yet another possession. After a missed Five Reasons shot, Five Reasons' Dan Reidy battled for the rebound, but instead of a jump ball being called, the referee blew his whistle for a foul. Oleniczak sank the free throw and the comeback paused.
Lustig forced a foul with his patented pump fake, knocking down the free throw. But the Nylon Strokers' Ryan Wood made a reverse layup, followed by a long baseline jumper by Conway to make it gamepoint at 20-16.
"We tried to fight our way back in," said Lustig, "but they had already pulled out a decent lead on us."
Reidy tried to will his team the win by hitting a jump shot. Ryan and Lustig each followed with jumpers to nearly knot the score at 20-19.
The string of defensive stops ended there for Five Reasons. Vitter launched a shot from the top of the key. It hit the front of the rim, bounced back and dropped through the net for the 21-19 Nylon Strokers' victory.
"Scoring hadn't really been our problem all day long," said Vitter, "so I was pretty confident we could get one or two more in."
Vitter was right.
"It was good to have Al, the MVP, hitting it," said Oreniczak. "He was joking with me, I had hit the last shot the last three or four games. I let him have that one. I gave him that one to finish."
And finish he did.
All Sports Stories for Monday, April 30, 2001
