Sunday, March 25, 2001

By Rusty Bryan
Stars and Stripes

Raymond T. Conway / Stars and Stripes Ivy Nicholson of Vilseck, Germany, splits two Kaiserslautern defenders during second-round action of the USAEUR Community League Championships Saturday in Mannheim, Germany. Kaiserslautern won, 51-37

MANNHEIM, Germany — The first rule for any tournament, as everyone knows, is not to look past your next opponent.

Mannheim’s defending USAREUR and U.S. Forces champion men demonstrated the reason why Saturday when they obliterated Southern Region fourth-seed Schweinfurt 107-66 in a game that might have severely discouraged future Mustang opponents if they had bothered to watch.

After nailing down the North Region No. 1 seed early Friday, the Mustangs opened a 45-30 halftime lead, expanded it to nearly 30 points with 14:30 to play in the game and cleared their bench.

Unfortunately for Schweinfurt, Mannheim’s bench, led by 19 points from William Evans, played as though the score were close and turned up the intensity level even higher.

"We try to play the same way we do in practice," said Mannheim coach Thomas Benson.

If that’s so, the Mannheim medical clinic, perhaps not coincidentally sited just behind the BFV Sports Arena here, must be thoroughly practiced in the art of treating floor burns and heat prostration. To these guys, playing flat-out generally means prone on the floor trying for a steal or diving for a loose ball and at an energy level that would french fry the average couch potato. Schweinfurt’s athletes, with nary a spud among them, didn’t get fried, just fatigued — grabbing their jerseys to indicate to their bench to take them out.

Dejuan Bowdry led Mannheim’s score sheet with 20 points, but it was the length of the sheet that impressed the most. Ten Mustangs scored in Saturday’s opener of the single-elimination portion of this four-day tournament, and six of them reached double-figures.

More important than that, however, is the way the Mustangs were able to rest up for the rest of Saturday’s schedule — a semifinal game in the evening against the Vilseck-Darmstadt winner.

That victor will advance to Sunday’s 5 p.m. championship game at the Sports Arena.

In the women’s tournament, Kitzingen’s unbeaten Lady Rattlers, the Southern Region regular-season champs who earned the South’s top seed with three victories in the positional portion of this tournament on Thursday and Friday, eliminated the defending USAREUR and U.S. Forces champion Heidelberg Lady Generals 62-46. The defeat cost Heidelberg, winless in four tries, the chance to defend both of its crowns — only the champion and runner-up from this event will make the U.S. Forces tournament April 5-8 in Würzburg.

Judging from the way Kitzingen, aka Würzburg, has been rolling here, the Lady Rattlers just might find themselves playing for that now-vacant U.S. Forces crown on their home court next month.

Standing between them and a guaranteed berth in the U.S. Forces event is the winner of Saturday’s later game between North No. 2 Kaiserslautern and South No. 3 Ansbach. Should they get past that game, the winner among North No. 1 Mannheim, South No. 4 Hohenfels, North No. 3 Baumholder and South No. 2 Vilseck will be waiting for them in Sunday's 3 p.m. championship game.

Then again, as everyone knows, it doesn't pay to look that far ahead.

In Friday’s late games of note, Darmstadt’s Kelvin Sims put on the scoring demonstration of the tournament so far, pouring through 37 points against Baumholder.

Unfortunately for his Demons team, the regular-season Northern Region leaders, Baumholder survived Sims’ onslaught and walked off with the No. 2 seed in the North with a 95-92 victory.

Kitzingen’s men, despite a 91-77 loss to Vilseck, earned the top seed in the Southern Region, and Mannheim’s women went 3-0 for the event with a 53-40 victory over Heidelberg to earn the top seed in the Northern Region.

Sunday’s play, all at the BFV Sports Arena, begins at 11 a.m. with the women’s third-place game. The men’s consolation game follows at 1 p.m., and the title games tip-off at 3 and 5 p.m. Admission is free.

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