There have been a lot of incredible and historic sports seasons at Fairfield University over the years. This second installment relives the 1977-78 men's basketball team historic win over Holy Cross and its berth into the NIT. Please click here to read the first installment of this two-part series. 

By Chris Elsberry

Part Two – The Game
 
Holy Cross was one of the heavy hitters in college basketball in the Northeast. The Crusaders had been to six NCAA tournaments, two Final Fours and had won the national championship in 1947. George Blaney was the coach and among his players was Ronnie Perry, a 6-foot-2 sophomore guard that averaged 21.7 points a game. Holy Cross was coming off a loss to another northeast power, Providence, and both the Crusaders and the Stags came into the game at Alumni Hall with 11-2 records.
 
"I'll tell you this story," says Don Cook, the Fairfield athletic director at the time. "I get a call at home on Christmas morning from a fan that says, 'I've got to have two tickets for the game.' My answer was, 'I don't care if you were born in a manger, you're not getting any tickets.' "
 
Because of a snowstorm that blanketed the Northeast the day before, the university opened the dorms early, so the students could get to campus safely – and of course, pack Alumni Hall to the rafters, which they did. That night's attendance was a standing-room only 3,284.
 
"Holy Cross was our big rivalry and when they came to Fairfield, this was the game. This was the one you circled on the calendar," Joe DeSantis said. "They had Ronnie Perry, who was rated really high and they had Chris Potter, a great player from the Bronx, who I knew from the Catholic League. I remember the whole scenario leading up to the game. They opened school early because of snow and the place (Alumni Hall) was mobbed … the fans were so into the game and us? We knew that it was the game."
 
"Everyone on campus was fired up," said Flip Williams. "Everyone wanted to go to the game. It was an amazing feeling, everyone cheering for us, I think the term was 'Stagmania' and it was. It was infectious and we fed off it. Teams did not want to play in our gym. Everyone was going crazy."
 
For the first few minutes, the game went back and forth but then Steve Balkun hit a short jumper to give Fairfield a 13-12 lead and the Stags never looked back, eventually heading into the locker room leading 56-46.
 
"I remember saying at halftime, 'We're up 10, let's beat these guys by 30.' " DeSantis said. "Nothing personal, we just wanted to beat them."
 
"I remember coming back out of the locker room and the fans are screaming and in the layup line, I was so pumped," Kim Fisher said. "I felt like I could touch the top of the backboard."
 
The ace up Fairfield's sleeve that night was an offensive change designed by Head Coach Fred Barakat and Assistant Caoch Brendan Suhr that worked to perfection.
 
"Their (Holy Cross) style was, they pressed you the whole game, they used a zone press and Fred and I put together this press offense that allowed us to throw over the top of their press, come down on the fast break and score," Suhr said. "We were a good team and had been a good team, but that game shook the basketball world, especially in the New England and New York metro areas. Holy Cross was ranked, Ronnie Perry was probably one of the best players in the country but that night, there is no doubt, in my opinion, Joey D was the better player."
 
In the second half, the Stags kept the pedal to the metal, scoring an incredible 67 points. For the game, Fairfield shot 63 percent from the floor (41 of 65) and 41 of 50 (82 percent) from the free throw line.
 
Fisher had 28 points, Mark Plefka added 24 and Flip Williams 23 to lead Fairfield. DeSantis, despite fouling out, scored 15 points and added 10 assists. Mark Young chipped in with 15 points, For Holy Cross, Ronnie Perry managed just 16 points.
 
"To have a game that was 123 to 103 without a 3-point line or overtime is incredible," said Mike Palazzi. "We didn't care that they were No. 14 in the country, we took it right to them."
 
Said DeSantis, "We came them from all different directions. Plefka had a great game and (Kim) Fisher had a bunch of points. (Holy Cross) being nationally ranked kind of doubled the importance of the game. They were Holy Cross, they had great players, but this was our game, this was a game on the schedule we knew we had to win."
 
Said Williams, "No one thought we were going to beat Holy Cross by 20. Everything just came together. We cleared the bench against Holy Cross."
 
Really? Yes, really.
 
John McManus, Joe Nelson, Bob Bilosi, Rich Borggini and Palazzi – all freshmen – played as did sophomore Barry Gunderson. Broggini, Palazzi and McManus even scored.
 
"They came in and we blew them out," Balkun said of Holy Cross. "I remember talking with George Blaney later when he was coaching at UConn and he told me that he broke his foot after that Fairfield game because he kicked something in the locker room, he was so mad."
 
Still flying high after knocking off the Crusaders, Fairfield only had one day's break before taking on another big rival, Iona, and its superstar player, Jeff Ruland.
 
"Jeff was one of the best players I ever played against," Balkun said. "We kept switching defenses on him and we were going at it pretty good. It was a tough game and I think Ruland had a ton of points, but we shut down everyone else. Another fun game. Everyone did their job."
 
In what would wind up being a 78-76 Fairfield victory, Kim Fisher scored with three seconds left in regulation to break the tie and then stole away the Iona inbounds to seal the victory. Fisher finished with 24 points, Young scored 22 points and added seven rebounds, DeSantis had 17 and Balkun 10 points and eight boards. Ruland had 23 for Iona.
 
"That's the best I've seen Young play in three years," Iona Head Coach Jim Valvano told the Bridgeport Telegram. "He was outstanding."
 
Rocky Rhode Island
 
After Seton Hall defeated Fairfield to end a 29-game home court win streak at Alumni Hall, the Stags knocked off St. Peter's, St. Joseph's, St. Bonaventure, Long Island and UConn to finish the regular season 22-3 and earn, along with Rhode Island, Providence and Holy Cross, a berth in the ECAC tournament at the Providence Civic Center, a two-game affair with the winner capturing a berth in the NCAA tournament.
 
Fairfield was finally getting a chance to shine on the national stage – think about it, no UConn, no Boston College – and they were ready to show that they belonged with the elite programs of the Northeast.
 
"UConn, Boston College, those were national powers that we beat out to be part of the tournament," Suhr said. "I knew we were good enough to play anyone, and beat anyone, anywhere and that's a heck of a feeling to know that. To go anyplace and know that you can win, it's a great feeling."
 
Then disaster struck.
 
The night before the Rhode Island game, the Stags were scheduled to have a brief shootaround at the gym and then simply head back to the hotel. But Barakat, who was either 'upset or nervous' according to Balkun, ordered a full two-hour practice.
 
"No one was taped or anything," Balkun said. "And I remember going down."
 
Balkun had torn ligaments in his ankle. It was bad.
 
"It was one of the worst moments of my life," Balkun said. "I was in doctor's and physical therapists' offices almost all night. They were doing everything to get me to play but I couldn't walk. That was a low moment."
 
It all came down to this. Tied at 69, Sly Williams made a jumper from the left baseline with about 20 seconds left to give the Rams a two-point lead. Fairfield looked to Kim Fisher for the tying basket, but Rhode Island's defensive pressure denied him the shot.
 
 "They were on me pretty good," Fisher said. "and Flip ended up taking the shot … he didn't make it."
 
DeSantis inbounded the ball to Fisher, who got tied up by a Rams defender and almost lost the ball. Managing to get it to Williams, Williams drove the lane and missed a short jump shot with four seconds to play.
 
"I want to go on the record," Williams said. "I took the last shot against Rhode Island and missed it. It was a runner in the lane, and it should have gone in. We looked at the tape the next day and Sly Williams tipped it away. He goaltended it. The refs never called it. That's how close the game was."
 
Without Balkun, Mark Plefka started and along with Young, struggled against the Rams big front line of 6-foot-8 Irv Chapman, 6-foot-7 Williams and 6-foot-9 center Randy Wilds. Fisher had 26 points for Fairfield, 18 coming in the second half, DeSantis had 16 and Williams 11. Sly Williams led everyone with 28.
 
"I was terrible," Young said. "I shot like crap that night."
 
"If I played, there is no way that Sly Williams would have scored 28 points," Balkun said. "He would have been my man to guard and there would have been no way he scores 28 … maybe 20 but not 28."
 
"Listen, we really missed not having Steve in the game," said Palazzi. "We needed him."
 


NIT bound
 
At 22-4, Fairfield received a bid to the National Invitation Tournament, the third time the Stags had been invited to the postseason. The game, however, would not be an easy one as Fairfield had to play Dayton – in the Dayton Arena – no less.
 
"Dayton had just beaten Notre Dame so that tells you how good Dayton was," DeSantis said. "We weren't intimidated, we were a team of seniors and juniors but I remember they threw rolls of toilet paper at us. It was like Holy Cross playing in our gym, we didn't have a chance."
 
"It was crazy loud in there," Young said. "We couldn't hear each other running up and down the court, we had to use hand signals because it was so loud. Dayton had a lot of experience playing in the postseason, at home with something like, 14,000 people there. What I remember was after the first (Dayton) basket, hundreds of rolls of toilet paper came flying out of the stands at us."
 
At halftime, Fairfield trailed 50-41, hanging close thanks to Young scoring 14 points and DeSantis' 12. But the Flyers put together a second half opening 29-12 run over the first 10-plus minutes of the second half to open a commanding 79-53 advantage and never looked back.
 
"They had (Jim) Paxson there and their point guard, this kid (Jack) Zimmerman, he shot really well and they just took us out of our game," Young said. "Paxson would get to the baseline under our 1-3-1 (zone) and we couldn't slow him down."
 
Mark Young led Fairfield with 32 points while Kim Fisher added 23 and DeSantis had 18 Flip Williams managed just seven points – all coming in the first half and Blakun, playing 30 minutes on a badly sprained ankle, had just two points.
 
For Dayton, Jim Rhoden had 26 points with Paxson scoring 25 (and adding nine assists), Erv Giddings had 18 points and 22 rebounds, while Zimmerman had 19 points.
 
"Dayton was a great program," said Suhr. "That was a hell of a team. Jimmy Paxson was a hell of a player, high NBA draft pick and was something we didn't have an answer for. They played an efficient moving style offense and when they got going, it was like a runaway freight train. When they got a lead, they just kept going."
 
Fairfield ended the season at 22-5, the most single season wins in program history.
 
Both Balkun and Fisher were selected by the Boston Celtics in the seventh and eighth rounds, respectively in the 1978 NBA draft and in 1979, Young (41st) and DeSantis (44th) were both drafted in the second round. Young going to the Los Angeles Lakers and DeSantis going to the Washington Bullets.
 
Think about it. Four Fairfield players from the same team all selected by the NBA.
 
"The biggest mistake I made was when I went to the NBA after Mark and Joey's senior year, going to the (Atlanta) Hawks and we had two second round picks and (head coach) Hubie (Brown) said that he really liked my two kids from Fairfield. I didn't want to look like I was playing favorites but I should have picked both guys for the Hawks because they were good enough to play in the league," Suhr said. "I knew they were great but I didn't know if their games would convert to the NBA and I should have picked them."
 
DeSantis finished the season with a 20.1 scoring average while Fisher was next at 18.0 points a game. Young averaged 17.1 points and 7.4 rebounds. Balkun finished with a 9.7 points a game average and 10.2 rebounds. Williams averaged 9.4 points and Plefka 8.2. Overall, Fairfield averaged a whopping 86.5 points a game.
 
"Looking back, we had a fantastic season," said Palazzi.
 
"You talk about balance," DeSantis said. "I was at point, Kim Fisher was at the 2, Flip Williams was a small forward, like a 3 guard and we had Young and Balkun, who could really jump, rebound and block shots. And then we had guys like Plefka, Mike Palazzi and Rich Broggini coming off the bench. We were all willing to do what it takes. We didn't play for points, we played to win."
 
And win they did, putting together one of the greatest seasons in Fairfield sports history.