1969 Darlington     

By Bob Whalen

     Darlington could NEVER WIN the Crawfordsville Sectional, but they did win the 1969 Lebanon Sectional. They had been the runner up in 1968. In 69 they entered the Lebanon Sectional with a 21-0 record. In the sectional they defeated Pike 83-69, Zionsville 81-69 and in the title game Speedway 56 to 54. They advanced to the Frankfort Regional with a 24-0 record and a game with Crawfordsville. This was the first time in history that two Montgomery County schools played each other in the regional.

     The game with Crawfordville was hard fought and close all the way. Darlington led by 2 at the first quarter and half: Crawfordsville led by 4 at the end of the third quarter and the game ended
with Crawfordsville winning 70-66. Five players fouled out of the game, two for Crawfordsville and three for Darlington. There were twenty fouls called on Crawfordsville and twenty three on Darlington, Darlington made one more basket than Crawfordsville did but Crawfordsville hit 63% of their free throws to only 44% by Darlington. One sport's writer said that if they played ten times Darlington would win at least seven times. Guess he didn't know that in Indiana high school basketball tourney, one loss and you are OUT.

     The two closest games Darlington had in the regular season were a 73 to 70 overtime win over Thorntown and a six point win over Zionsville. They scored over 100 points five times with a high game of 117. The regular starters for Darlington were, seniors Tom Lehe, Fred Warren, Don
Threlked and juniors Rich Douglas and Dan Nichols. The 6th man was Roy Wright. The team was made up of four seniors and eight juniors. After this great season, Darlington came back in 1970 with a regular season record of 21-0 but were knocked out of the Lebanon Sectional by Lebanon. In the 68 season they had finished at 18-4 and in the 71 season they also had finished at 18-4.   

     They were their four best seasons ever in their basketball history. In these four seasons they
had three different coaches. Galen Smith in 68, Dave Nicholson in 69 and 70 and Gene Morrison in 71.

     Darlington finished as runner up in the Crawfordsville Sectional five times; 1919, 1934, 1941, 1941 and 1946.In 1919 Darlington advanced to the Crawfordsville Sectional Title game with Crawfordsville by defeating Attica, Ladoga, and Veedersburg but lost to Crawfordsville 16 to 7. In 1934 they advanced to the title game of the Crawfordsville Sectional by defeating Alamo, Waveland and Waynetown but lost in the title game to New Richmond by a 35 to 24 count.
For the season they had an over all record of 16-7. In 1941 they defeated Alamo and Bowers to reach the title game against Crawfordsville who defeated them 28 to 24.They finished the season with a 16-9 record. In 1942 they defeated New Richmond and New Ross to again reach the title
game against Crawfordsville but Crawfordsville destroyed them by 42 points. Their last shot at the Crawfordsville Sectional title was 1946 when they defeated Bowers and Alamo to reach the title game again with Crawfordsville who defeated them by eleven points. This year Darlington
finished up with an over all record of 17 and 5 which was their best record until the 1957 and 1958 when they had an over all record of 18-4 both years but failed each time to reach the title game.

     Darlington started playing basketball in 1907 and their Last season was 1971. They became part of North Montgomery after this season. They had a team for four years and then none for three years and then started basketball again and played thru 1971. Darlington had many fine basketball players. Both Don Threlkeld ('69) and Rich Douglas ('70) scored over 1200 points. Dan Nichols ('70) almost reached 1000 points. Other players were Ray Hankins ('37), Al Niswonger and Damon Warren ('41). Also "Butch" Dale ('66) and Bob Muellen ('58). Darlington had many coaches in their history. Ed Miller coached longer than any other coach as he was there for TEN seasons.Others were Emmerson Mutterspaugh five season and Al Niswonger four seasons. Other coaches who coached there for four seasons were; Bob Gibbs, Alex Cox, Lester Tudor, and Galen Smith.