Roadrunners On Deck Feb. 7 Women’s Hoops at Colorado Christian 6 p.m. Men’s Hoops at Colorado Christian 8 p.m. Feb. 8 Women’s Hoops at Colorado Mines 6 p.m. Men’s Hoops at Colorado Mines 8 p.m. Feb. 12 Baseball Season Opener Metro at Regis 2 p.m. Feb. 13 Homecoming Games Women’s Hoops vs Regis 5 p.m. Auraria Men’s Hoops vs Regis 7 p.m. Auraria WEEKLY RESULTS Jan. 31 Men’s Hoops beats Chadron State 80-49 Women’s Hoops beats Chadron State 64-49 Jan. 29 Men’s Hoops beats Regis 64-40 Women’s Hoops lost to Regis 56-61 Athletic Hall of Fame The Metro athletic department recently announced its 2003 inductees to the Roadrunner Hall of Fame. They include former women’s basketball coach Darryl Smith (1990-98), men’s swimmer Darwin Strickland (1993-96), volleyball player Crissy Cananda (1991-94), baseball player Keith Schulz (1983-86), artist Malcolm Farley and the 33-0 1978 volleyball team. The Class of 2003 will be honored at a ceremony at the Holiday Inn Select at 455 S. Colorado Blvd., 6 p.m. Feb. 14.

Life has to be fun if you are going to be any good at it and so does the game.

These are the beliefs of Metro’s starting point guard. And as his mother Sarah so correctly puts it: “Clayton’s been blessed with basketball.”

Clayton Terrell Smith. There are several titles associated with that name. Maybe even one more. Smith has been apart of two National Division II Championships in four years here at Metro. In 1998, his high school team won the state title. He has titles from middle school and recreational ball. He played for a team sponsored by George Karl, then the Seattle Supersonics head coach, that was ranked No. 1 in the country.

“Basketball has played such a good part in my life; if somebody took it away from me it would be hard to adjust,” Smith said. “It’s played such a big role in my development as a person, it’s played a big role in taking me places and showing me new things and showing me different ways of doing things. Without basketball I don’t think I would be the same person.”

Smith has been wrapped around basketball every since it wrapped around him. But before you know anything about him, you have to start at the grassroots level, when he walked into game one with his throat in his stomach and quivering kneecaps; a lost puppy.

At first he couldn’t see the joy in it all, blinded by the deep shouts from the parents and grandparents congesting the recreation center. So many people. So many eyes. So many things they can say to me. So many things that can go wrong, will go wrong.

He was six-years-old. It was his first game. Ever. Coach gave the pre-game speech. His teammates rushed out for warm-ups. Smith’s head, though, rushed from one fear to the next. He didn’t want to go out. The locker room was a quiet hiding place. The court wasn’t. The crowd ate him up.

He worked hard for this moment too. Like most hoop dreams, Smith’s started alone. He practiced at a park near his home in Seattle, between two stratus clouds.
He liked to shoot on the deck of his house with a rim bolted to the wall, but usually his dad, Donald, wouldn’t let him fire from the outside. He first had to learn the infinite number of ways to angle the ball off the backboard, shooting lay up after lay up. Donald told him that point guards from the benighted days of Boston Celtic’s Bob Cousy looked to pass, setup their floormates, control the ball and tempo. That is a true point guard and that’s what Smith wanted to be, just not now.

“I sat in the locker room and I wouldn’t leave,” Smith recalled. “I was so scared because everybody’s parents were there watching and stuff. I was so scared I didn’t want to play. My dad had to come drag me out.”
Donald reminded his son of his commitment to the team and convinced him that he only had to play defense, because anybody can play defense. Smith finally crept out and played and loved it. Every time he played from then on the chills disappeared a little bit, churning trepidation into anticipation.

“He came out and actually played defense pretty well,” Donald said. “He got comfortable with the game enough that he stole the ball and went down and made a basket and launched a pretty successful career.”

Today, Smith avoids the locker room. As game time approaches you can spot him sitting in the far corner of the stands at the Auraria Events Center, with eyes visualizing something besides the chair in front of him. Minutes before the 2002 National Division II title game against Kentucky Wesleyan tipped off, Smith dribbled a ball back and forth in the long tunnel that lead out to court at Roberts Stadium in Evansville, Ind. He saw the crowd pile in, the lucent lights and the building hype. He soaked it all in. He was getting relaxed.
“For me sitting in the locker room just gets me antsy,” Smith said. “I just need to sit down and try to envision the game in my head, before it happens. Before we even start I’ve played 10 plays in my head already.”

Photo by - David Merrill Senior point guard Clayton Smith has always been the smallest player on the court at 5-foot-5, but he has the biggest number (55) and most responsibilities on the team.

During the 2002 championship run Smith was the regulator and a hero of sorts, quickly bringing his teammates to life with his hustle. Yeah, anyone can play defense, but no one plays it like Smith. He runs back and forth, poking at the ball, giving goosebumps to defenders.

On an AAU summer league team he was know as the “One man press breaker.” Well, towards the end of the title game against Kentucky Wesleyan, Smith was just that. Time and again he took a outlet pass, made a hard cut on the dribble and knifed through two pressing defenders at a velocity that ripped the court wide open, allowing the Roadrunners to pull away. In the 80-72 win he scored nine points with 12 assists and four steals. He was named to the Elite Eight Team.

“Down the back stretch (of the playoffs) he was unbelievable,” junior teammate Luke Kendall said. “He was all over the place on defense, just wreaking havoc. He took control of the game and the tempo, made tough baskets. That’s why he was on the Elite Eight All-Star team.”

Well scoring is against his nature, already this year Smith has established a new career high in points (21) and steals (6). He is currently fifth in the nation with a 7.4 assist per game average and No. 7 in steals with three a game. He’s also a big reason why Metro’s defense is tops in the conference and third in the nation, allowing a measly 56.8 points a contest.

“Defensively, I just run around, trying to create havoc,” Smith said. “I figure if I stand in one spot I’m not going to be very effective with my size.”

For point guards, everything depends on feel; whether you push the pace or play a half court game. It depends on the feel of his fingertips on the ball and the control in his wrist. And his timing; to get the ball at exactly the right time and place. Smith has all these transcendent abilities and more.

“Some of the plays (I make) it’s not even a thought to make a play like that,” Smith said. “To throw a pass like that it is just a reaction. You may see a guy cutting to the basket and his defender may not by looking, but if you throw the ball right pass the defender’s head, it’s a lay up.”

Smith finds angles and small cavities in the defense, no on else can see. He’s 5-foot-5, but he does interesting, not spectacular, things with the ball when he drives among the big men. In his wake, he passes off to a teammate unguarded. One sequence at the end of the first half in Metro’s 80-49 shellacking of Chadron State on Jan. 31 perfectly summed up the difference between Smith and today’s me-generation players at the point. With four seconds left, Smith took a inbounds pass, got low, drove through the middle and into the opening. But instead of laying the ball up for an easy two off the glass, Smith dished to center Ben Ortner who was fouled under the rim as time expired. Ortner made both free throws and Metro head coach Mike Dunlap pointed at Smith as if to say “You da man.” In essence, Dunlap has entrused his offense to a single maestro.

“He’s a true point guard,” Dunlap said. “He sets people up and knows who to get the ball to in the right spots. There wouldn’t be two or three guys in the country that are quicker than him at any level. He’s as quick from one spot to another as anybody in the country, Division I, II or III.”

And to think Smith had to walk-on for his first season (1998-99) and then ended up redshirting. Coming across a Metro recruiting letter at the last minute, Smith enrolled two days before classes started, when no scholarships were left. His parents paid for tuition, books, housing and food, the whole smash that first season. But after the first week of practices  the coaching staff was so impressed with Smith they granted him a four-year scholarship the following season.

During a team meeting that first year, Dunlap called the dimunitive Smith a little puppy and assistant coach Derrick Clark has called him “Pup,” ever since Smith stopped dreaming about being 6-foot-6 and dunking on people long ago.

He likes being small. He likes learning something new each day. Right now, he is so focused on basketball that he’s not sure where his business degree will take him next year. If his court play is any indication, and his teammates can attest, Smith is not setting himself up for failure.
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Roadrunners let Regis off hook
One month left to reach goals
by Eric Eames
The Metropolitan

Photo by - David Merrill The Metro women's basketball team shakes hands with visiting Chadron State after a 64-49 Metro win Jan. 31, to improve their record to 10-9 overall and 7-4 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.

The Metro women’s basketball team finds themselves in the underdog role, even when they are supposed to win. As twisted as that statement sounds it is a simple paradox; upon abysmal inspection it is nonetheless true.

The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference hasn’t heard much from the Roadrunners in the past two years (a combined 21-32 record), and a  feeling of that same theme repeating itself is planted in minds around the league. But the Roadrunners have set goals to play in the eight-team RMAC Championship Tournament. They even envision hosting a playoff game.

For that to happen, the Roadrunners 10-9 (7-4 RMAC) will have to take February by storm. Two out of last three years, a 13-6 conference record was good enough to host a first-round RMAC playoff game. Currently in fifth place in the RMAC standings, Metro might not be able to afford two losses this month to reach its goals.

“I don’t think it is life or death, in terms of need to (go on a winning streak), but certainly that is our goal, is try to run the tables,” head coach Dave Murphy said. “A lot of people don’t believe in us, but we believe in ourselves…. We continue to get better, especially defensively. We play pretty good on the road. It’s in the back of our mind, but we just need to get ready to go by Friday” Feb. 7 when the Roadrunners will be at Colorado Christian (7-10; 2-8), followed by a Feb. 8 game at Colorado Mines (4-14; 2-8).

You never really cancel the fear of losing, but right now Metro needs to win a close game to diminish some of it. While closing out January with a 64-49 home thrashing of Chadron State (8-10; 5-5), there was still talk about the one win that blew up in front of them when they hit a screaming dead end in the final seven minutes in a 61-56 loss at Regis University (13-5; 8-2).

Up by as many as 11 points in the second half, and holding a firm eight-point lead with 7:03 to play, the Roadrunners went stone cold around the basket, bricking nine lay-ups or point blank jumpers. They also turned the ball over six times during that same stretch. With five seniors on the floor, the Rangers took advantage taking their third lead of the game at 53-51 on a pair of free throws by Molly Marrin, who scored 18 points.

Murphy said, “(Regis) showed why they are a top team and a mature team. Even when down, when most teams would have just quit, they stayed in it and believed that they could still win. As they got a turnover, a rebound and made shots, all of a sudden they snowballed us.

Photo by - David Merrill Metro guard Natasha Molock drives past Chadron State forward Kim Petty during a 64-49 Metro win Jan. 31 at the Auraria Events Center. Molock led all scorers with 25 points to go with six rebounds.

“We should have won, but we are learning how to close a team off and that doesn’t come over night.  We relaxed and that little relaxation made us lose our focus, which led to an errant pass, which led to a missed shot. What good teams do is that they understand that you can’t relax.”

Afterward the look on the Roadrunners faces, dispirited and a little peeved, told it all. Senior Malene Lindholm could careless about the 16 points she scored or the big three that pulled Metro within one at 57-56 with 40 seconds to go. She just wanted a win over a top RMAC team.

“It’s difficult (to stay positive),” junior Natasha Molock said, “because you have to go to practice and you’re still down from the other game. It’s hard, but you got to win the next game, because you want people to still respect you, so you have to comeback playing hard every time or else you won’t get any respect.”

Molock, who didn’t earn conference Player-of-the-Week, showed why she should have been picked for the honor in the win against Chadron. She scored 25 points, 17 in the first half, to go with six rebounds, three steals and three assists. After spending much of the off season working with “The Gunner”—a machine that forces a player to shoot with more arc and rolls the ball back to the player—Molock showed that she can be both a gunner from the outside and a threat to drive the lane. It’s on defense, though, where Molock drives opponents nuts.

“I like to get to their heads,” Molock said, “so that when they see me coming they know that I’m not going to give them an easy time.”

Metro scored 30 points off 24 Chadron turnovers to take command. Junior Rachel Grove also had a solid game against Chadron, scoring 13 points and grabbing six rebounds. Starting point guard Courtney Pettitt, meanwhile, was all over the stat page and all over the court. The junior recorded 12 points, five rebounds, five assists and four steals. Both hustle players Molock and Pettitt constantly back each other up. Murphy said all her life Pettitt has been told that she can’t play basketball, because she’s too small or she doesn’t have the natural ability or whatever. All of which has lit a fire under her butt, in an instant reaction, “I’m gonna prove you wrong.”

And no one can question her determination and all-out grit. Murphy added, “Courtney has always been about playing the game and loving to play the game and taking advantage of every day that she is allowed to play the game.”
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