FAIRMONT — There once was a time when Fairmont State and Salem International had one of the most heated rivalries in the West Virginia Conference on the hardwood.
There still is no love lost between the two programs, but in recent years the Falcon men and in particular, the FSU women, have dominated their games with the Tigers.
Tonight the long-standing series between the teams resumes with a doubleheader at the Joe Retton Arena. Action gets under way this evening at 5:30 p.m. when the Lady Falcons and Lady Tigers square off. The men’s contest is slated for a 7:30 p.m. tip off.
These games were originally scheduled to be played in Salem, but the Tigers are having work done to the T. Edward Davis Gymnasium, thus prompting the move to Fairmont. All FSU season tickets holders are reminded to use their Feb. 13 tickets for tonight’s games.
This evening’s games are the WVC openers for both Fairmont and Salem. The Tigers, however, are ineligible for the league title this year due to NCAA sanctions.
FSU’s men enter the contest 2-0, while Salem is 0-3. The Tigers recently lost head coach Andy Sorine. He will be replaced by Glenville State assistant coach Randy Unger. He, however, is not scheduled to officially take over Salem’s program until Dec. 3.
Fairmont’s men have won their last four meetings with Salem, including a wild 84-74 victory in last year’s regular-season finale. The Tigers, though, have a lot of new faces on their roster this season, including former North Marion High School standout Sam Smith, a redshirt freshman who is averaging close to 10 points a game and four rebounds.
The Falcons, who have been idle since a Nov. 16, 74-60, victory over Urbana University, say they’re anxious to see what strides they’ve taken as a team in the last seven days.
“We’ve been practicing hard this past week and I think everybody is going to be ready to come in here Tuesday night and play,” said Falcon sophomore guard Steve Custis, who leads the team in both scoring (14.5) and rebounding (6.5). “You know the Thanksgiving break is coming up and we’re looking forward to that, but we know we have business to take care of first before we really can enjoy that.
“Against Urbana we got beat pretty bad on the boards, so we’ve really been working a lot lately on boxing out and getting to and controlling rebounds. We know that’s going to be a key for us in the future. The bottom line is this is our league opener, Salem has always been a rivalry game for us and we’re all anxious to get out there and play another game.”
Fairmont State’s Lady Falcons, meanwhile, bring a 1-1 overall record into tonight’s game. The Lady Tigers, on the other hand, are 0-1.
FSU defeated Bluefield (Va.) College in its opener, but couldn’t hold a 15-point halftime lead in its second contest with Milligan (Tn.) College and suffered a disappointing, 74-56 loss.
Like the FSU men, the Lady Falcons are looking for vast improvements in their overall game this evening against the Lady Tigers.
“Obviously that loss was pretty disappointing to us,” said FSU senior forward Samantha Guell, who is averaging 4.0 points and 2.5 rebounds. “We know we’ve got a lot of things to work on and we feel like we’ve had a pretty good week of practice and have been able to work on a lot of those things. We just need to be focused and ready to play for 40 minutes no matter who we’re playing.
“I think we all learned a lot from our first two games and especially the loss. We just need to take things one game at a time and try to improve every time we play.”
Salem has an entirely new team this season. All nine players on the Lady Tigers’ roster are freshmen.
As noted, FSU’s women have dominated the series in recent years winning 15 straight over the Lady Tigers.
Duane Cochrane
FSU hosts Salem in WVC openers
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