West Philadelphia High School - Record Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

Page 32 text:

Our basketball squad: from lelt to right. bottom row: King, Werther, Zartarian, Waxler, and Seitz. Standing are: Grekin. Daroll, Coach Hackman. Asst. Coach Cantor and Iurman. Iltltllt In a mad scramble lor the ball. No. 7, Waxler has both hands in the melee. Werther, No. 24. is coming in last to aid. With the return ol several letternien, Coach Hackman looks forward toa championship team. Western wound up in second place last year in the Public High playoffs and hopes this year to go all the Way and take the championship. With several Weeks ot extensive practice, Western opened its season by downing a strong Haverford quintet 3528. In this game Ed, Seitz scored l4 points and as a Whole the team showed great ability. ln their second game Western d-eteated St, Thomas More, 3U-19, With such a good start, Western hopes to keep on the go and put West Philadelphia back in the ranks of the champions. So good luck to Wes Hackman -and his speedboys. Underneath the backboard are Werther. No. 24, and Zartarian, No. 25.

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MII. IH With only four returned lettermen from last year's squad and the rest of the squad made up of last years I. V. team, this term found Western facing one of its toughest seasons in a long while. Despite the fact that Western failed to pile up an impressive record in the victory column, she did succeed in showing her rivals that she had plenty of fight in her. The team started its season by losing to Lower Merion at Ardmore. This defeat was followed by five more before Western won a game. Western defeated Overbrook by the score of 13 to 7 to keep its old Iinx on the Panthers. Nipon, playing his third year on the Varsity squad, scored all of Westerns 13 points. Most of Westerns passing was done by Ed Medzarentz. With lurman playing center on offense and backing up the line on defense, many a team found the going tough through this spot. Ioe Baker was a constant threat to the opposition, for when he got loose he was hard to stop and thus Western gained ground because of his winged feet. It can be said that Western could have won more games than she did if she could have gained only a yard or two where needed. For, time and time again, the team moved in long marches down the field, only to be stopped and denied a score by failing to gain one or two yards. Although defeated 25 to O on Thanksgiving Day by our traditional rival, West Catholic, Western played a great game. Over the years the score in games is tied at ll games each, with 3 ties. Because of experience gained this term, prospects for next season's Hackmen are bright. lHl PISSKI 4- J' Q4 . V . .mf . ww -, P ' ug., - ..- A X 3 xx.- .4 -- vi it rl ff Q ' ' - 'I V 1 4 iw , l 1' , v

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BA lllll UP ffl. Ml. HRSHNEH Coach Back Row: Gregory. Colbern, Iohnlon. Dellkor, Raluocxy, Iallo- man, Rubin, Sobel. Hummel. Saraydarian. Middle Row: Crossmore. I-einer, Kolsnonol, Sadlaon, Graham, Novak. Breslin, Goldstein. Sonlin. Rubin. Icrcobl Burnl, Manager: Kirshner. Coach. Front Row: Fox, Spitz, Goldberg. Souiilul. Tiltl. Fuller. Human. The Speedboys' baseball season was not a fail- ure, but neither did it come up to expectation. Many positions on the team were weak at the beginning of the season but grew stronger as the season progressed. Western, rated by sports writers as one of the strongest teams in the league, lived up to the writers' opinion by defeating Dobbins 4-3 and St. Thomas More 7-4 in early non-league games. Bill Decker, a tall, lanky letterman from last season, fanned 15 batters in the Dobbins game. But his arm gave way in the middle ol the season, and thus the team lost a great pitcher. However, the team had another pitcher in Hook Novak who was rated as one of the best pitchers in the Public League. Holding down the infield positions were Iohn Kokonos, Mark Spitz, Cleo Soufflas, and Ralph Hummel. Dick Rubin showed such slugging powers that he was inserted in the clean-up position in batting. Coach Kirschner revised his line-ups several times during the league competition in order to find where Western's power lay. Western looks forward to next spring and a better team.