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| Magic '95 crew to reunite Friday |
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1/30/2014
By Dan Manley
Advocate Sports Editor
They’ll be telling some tall tales this Friday night at Montgomery County High School when they hold a reunion of the 1994-95 boys’ basketball team that broke the barrier and put the Indians in the Sweet Sixteen for the first time in the school’s then 30-year existence.
Believe them!
No matter how magical it may all sound to you here in 2015, yes, you can believe the stories that sound a little unbelievable because it was quite a magical ending.
And the guy who slew the dragon was Billy Ray Fawns.
All six-foot-eight-inches of boyish charm.
’Twas Billy Ray, you see, who believed more than anyone else, that the Indians would play in Rupp Arena.
Then, in the championship game of the 10th Region Tournament, against a powerful Mason County team, Fawns scored a school-record 47 points as the Tribe pulled out a 99-92 double overtime victory at the Mason County Fieldhouse.
Those who would not consider it the greatest game ever played at the Fieldhouse would be those Mason County faithful who would have a hard time claiming a game where their beloved Royals did not win as that ediface’s greatest game.
Eight players, four from each team, fouled out of the game. Shawn Myrick scored 44 points for Mason County before he fouled out.
Fawns hit three-point shots at the end of regulation and at the end of the first overtime to keep the Indians alive and when Kirk Hammond hit a three early in the second overtime one finally got the feeling that at long last, the Tribe was going to win a regional title.
If ever there was reason to believe that playing a challenging schedule would make a difference come tournament time, the 1994-95 season would be it.
The Indians started the year 4-4, ending up losing 10 games and had a dozen games decided by six points or less.
They went two and out in the prestigious King of the Bluegrass and lost to West Carter in the opening round of the Ashland Invitational Tournament. They lost by 20 points to Lexington Catholic late in the regular season and fell to Mason County 75-71 in the final game of the regular season.
Nine times that season they gave up 78 or more points in a game, including the 100-80 point loss to Lexington Catholic. But they also scored 80 or more points on 14 occasions.
“It was a great team, a great group of young men to be around,” recalled Coach Bart Rison. “I had a great staff that worked really hard. James Scott was tireless in scouting and helping prepare for games and Marty Feltner and Jason Carmichael brought a lot of youthful enthusiasm that helped us work through that long season.”
The team included Ryan Steger, who went on to play for Belmont University and Ryan Owens, who sadly went down with an injury and missed the regional and state tournaments. Owens, along with Lee Clemons, had been stars on the gridiron for the Indians and carried that toughness onto the hardwood.
Jeff Rudd, who had transferred to Montgomery County, became a starter and was an intense rebounder, grabbing a team-high 11 in the state tournament win over Paintsville. Kirk Hammonds was a terrific outside shooter and with the injury to Owens it was Fawns-Steger-Rudd-Clemons-Hammonds that made up the starting lineup with Ricky Walker and Bradley Taylor the first players off the bench.
Fawns came back in the opening round of the state tournament with a 29-point effort and an improbable three-pointer near the end of regulation play that sent the game into overtime in a 78-71 Tribe win over the Paintsville Tigers.
Did I say “improbable?” Forget that, nothing was ever beyond the realm of possibility for this team.
Although much has always been made about teams reaching the state tournament and the line “The last one out of town, turn out the lights” it was literally true about Mt. Sterling and the trip to Rupp Arena in March, 1995.
There weren’t very many people left around town and those that were, simply glued themselves to the radio for a couple of hours and sweated out the outcome.
The crowd at Rupp Arena?
People still talk about that crowd from 1995, even after Indian fans packed the place a couple of years ago when the Tribe ended another 18-year drought and made it back to the Sweet Sixteen.
Included in that crowd was Billy Ray’s grandfather, Dale Fawns, who was a giant of a man and noted for, among other things, umpiring little league baseball games back in the 1950s at Legion Park in Mt. Sterling.
Curt Steger, Ryan’s father was there, too. It was particularly special for guys like Billy Ray’s father, Sonny Fawns, and Curt Steger, who played on great basketball teams that never reached the Sweet Sixteen, to see their sons on the floor at Rupp Arena.
The Indians hit 10 three-pointers in the win over Paintsville, three by Steger, three by Fawns, two by Clemons and two by Hammonds, to the delight of the Montgomery County fans. Steger scored 18 points, Clemons had 12, Hammonds eight and Rudd seven to go along with those 11 rebounds. That Paintsville team included a young J.R. VanHoose who would later become a Mr. Kentucky Basketball and lead the Tigers to a state championship.
The Tribe would fall the following night to a very fast, very athletic Pleasure Ridge Park team to end the season. But after short regrets the Indians were able to realize what they had accomplished. For themselves, for their coaching staff, for their school and for a community that was probably never bound any closer together than during those two weeks in March back in 1995.
Get out to the Arena Friday night when the Montgomery County teams take on Clark County and during the break between games they’ll be honoring the 1994-95 squad.
And if any of those guys tells you a story about that season that seems a little bit embelished, don’t even think about it.
Simply Believe!
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