Basketball Season of 1952 at Hand

Posted Thursday, November 19, 2015, at 10:24 AM

1950-1959

Clay County Democrat

Editor, J.R. Herrick

November 6, 1952

First Home Game

of Basketball Sees

Puxico Here

Tuesday Night, Nov. 18

With school opening Monday, Coach Clyde Benson has announced his basketball schedule for the season, with the first game of the year at Advance, Mo., Friday night, Nov. 14.

Rector's first home game will see Benson's Blackcats against the famed high-scoring Puxico, Mo., team on Tuesday night, Nov. 18. Friday of the same week Hoxie will play here.

This year's schedule includes five schools that have not appeared on our list heretofore; they are Advance, Puxico, Hoxie, Newport and Pocahontas. Kennett and Blytheville each played a game to them this year.

Coach Benson has been drilling both boys and girls teams two nights a week for the past 30 days, which should put them in fairly good shape to start the season. On the boys team, he lost three of his regulars from graduation, but has several fine prospects coming up from the juniors along with twenty-odd others trying to make the first string.

Bishop, Hays and Lawrence, all of last year's juniors, will probably get some action in a few games. Hays and Bishop both showed promise last year in ball handling, being exceptional fast and good dribblers.

Lawrence was a good basket shot last year. Of course it is yet to be seen what these three will do in faster company.

The schedule for the season follows:

Nov. 14 -- Advance -- There.

Nov. 18 -- Puxico -- Here.

Nov. 21 -- Hoxie -- Here.

Nov. 25 -- Leachville -- There.

Nov. 28 -- Knobel -- There.

Dec. 2 -- Marmaduke -- Here.

Dec. 5 -- Greenway -- There.

Dec. 9 -- Corning -- There.

Dec. 12 -- Piggott -- Here.

Dec. 16 -- Greenway -- Here.

Dec. 19 -- Marmaduke -- There.

Dec. 23 -- Knobel -- Here.

Dec. 26 -- Leachville -- Here.

Dec. 30 -- Newport -- There.

Jan. 6 -- Hoxie -- There.

Jan. 9 -- Gr. Co. Tech -- There.

Jan. 13 -- Corning -- Here.

Jan. 16 -- Paragould -- Here.

Jan. 20 -- Piggott -- There.

Jan. 23 -- Kennett -- There.

Jan. 27 -- Newport -- Here.

Jan. 30 -- Pocahontas -- There.

Feb. 3-- Gr. Co. Tech -- Here.

Feb. 6 -- Pocahontas -- Here.

Feb. 10 -- Blytheville -- There.

Feb. 13 -- Paragould -- There.

As our November, 1952, news item mentions, the youngest boys playing on the Blackcat senior high boys basketball team for 1952-53 were sophomores Jerry Bishop, Ralph Hayes and Layman Lawrence. Chamol Galyean also made the team as a sophomore.

Junior players were Bob Milburn, Jerry Tidwell, Tommy McGinthy, Donald Pruett and Robert Lyles. Bob Reddick, Johnny Brewer, Don Elliot and Paul Wiley Frets were the senior members of the team. Senior team managers were Jerry Cooper, Bill Bracken and Dan Donaldson.

This team started the season slowly, losing more games than they won, but from mid-season on, this Blackcat team turned their season around and won the Clay County Basketball Championship. The usual starters by mid-season were Chamol Galyean, Jerry Tidwell, Johnny Brewer, Paul Wiley Frets and Donald Pruett. Your writer could not find results of all of the team's games, but the Blackcats won at least 14 games and lost at least 13 games during this season.