Lansing State Journal from Lansing, Michigan • Page 19

Lansing State Journal Monday, January 1 7, 1 983 Scoreboard Pro Basketball Classified Minnesota cagerstoo tough, 75-CG Pco 4C SECTION Sport Editor. Ed Sonyczko Ph. 377-1071 3c fr mod BaMas -f NICE JOB, PODNAH! Dallas tight end Jay Saldi congratulates quarterback Danny White (11) after the Cowboys' 37-26 National Football Conference playoff triumph over the Green Bay Packers Sunday. AP Photo SMILE OF SUCCESS Miami Dolphins running back Tommy Vigorito grins as he races for yardage in Sunday 's surprisingly easy 34-13 American Football Conference playoff victory over the San Diego Chargers. AP Photo Clhaiirgeirs Miami's rips Fm By BRUCE LOWITT AP Sports Writer MIAMI "If you can have productive ball control and that means keeping it away from their offense and putting points on the board you can beat a team like San Diego," Miami Coach Don Shula said Sunday.

The Dolphins did all of that, decisively. They held the ball for more than 40 minutes, outgained the Chargers 413 yards to 241, and even out-passed San Diego quarterback Dan Fouts. And, taking advantage of an early wave of turnovers and David Wood-ley's two touchdown passes, the Dolphins routed the Chargers, 34-13. IT PUT MIAMI into next Sunday's American Conference championship game here against the New York Jets, whom they beat 45-28 and 20-19 during the National Football League's strike-shortened nine-game season. "Fouts isn't sacked very much and we got to him," said Shula.

"And Fouts isn't intercepted very much and we came up with the key plays there." Fouts, who a year ago set playoff passing records against Miami, was intercepted five times and thrown for 23 yards in losses on three sacks. He completed only 15 of 34 passes for 191 yards in his worst game of the season. MEANWHILE, WOODLEY, yanked out of last year's playoff game against San Diego in the first quarter, was near-perfect. He completed 17 of 22 passes for 195 yards. "The Chargers sit back there in a deep, deep zone and almost dare you to throw," Woodley said.

"They want you to get impatient and try to go long on them. We knew that going into the game, decided to be patient and hit the short routes and stayed with our game plan, regardless of what their defense did." Their defense did very little, particularly against Miami's ground game. The Dolphins rushed for 214 yards to San Diego's 79. "We wanted to run the ball more, but we got stuck in a pickle and we couldn't," said Fouts. "We didn't get much of anything going the way we wanted to." SAN DIEGO COACH Don Coryell, whose Chargers have now reached the playoffs the past four years but have failed to make it to the Super Bowl, added, "We would have had to play our best game against Miami to have a chance to beat them.

We didn't do it" See DOLPHINS, Page 2C fioires dflti Packers (TD(Q) XGkflSOS By MATT BOKOR Associated Press Writer By DENNE H. FREEMAN AP Sports Writer IRVING, Texas Dallas coach Tom Landry saw to it the Washington Redskins got what they wanted Sunday. Landry wheeled and dealed with every trick in his book before the Dallas Cowboys finally beat the Green Bay Packers 37-26 and advanced to the National Conference Football championship game against Washington. Dallas handed Washington its only loss of the season 24-10 at Washington during the regular season. "WE'RE LOOKING forward to meeting Washington next Saturday," Landry said.

"Everybody wanted us back and we're glad we can accommodate them." "We know Washington wanted us, and now they have us," said quarterback Danny White. It was Dallas' first playoff victory ever over the Packers. Landry said "Everyone should have gotten their money's worth It was a great game a great game for the fans. "I don't know how good we are yet, but we were never on the verge of putting Green Bay away. I knew they were going to explode on us." LANDRY SAID Packers' coach Bart Starr "did just a great job with his team.

I was proud of the way we played. They hit us with some big plays and we hit them with some." Dallas scored 14 points in 14 seconds late in the first half but still needed a fourth-period touchdown pass from White and a surprise pass by wide receiver Drew Pearson. "We can't have the errors against Washington that we had today," Landry said. "It will be an emotional game. I can tell you that." Starr said, "We got off to a bad start, but came back in the second half.

Dallas did what it had to do, which a championship team always does." Starr, who was the quarterback on the 1967 Packer team that beat Dallas for the NFL title the last time the two teams met in a playoff game, went across the field and shook hands with Landry at mid-field after the game. THE COWBOYS, who have an 8-3 record, will meet the Redskins in RFK Stadium Saturday for the right to play the AFC champion in Super Bowl XVII on Jan. 30 in Pasadena. It will be Dallas' 10th appearance in the NFC championship game in 13 years. See COWBOYS, Page 2C By RICK WOODSON Gannett News Service DALLAS Dermis Thurman isn't sure, but he thinks he may have found a new way to spend the night before an important football game.

First, he'll go to bed about midnight and sleep till about 3:30 a.m. Then he'll watch a little television. Maybe he'll go back to sleep, maybe he won't. Regardless, he gets out of bed for good at 7, showers and goes to church. IF YOU haven't tried it, don't knock it.

It works for Dennis. The fifth-year Dallas cornerback was so pumped up at the thought of spending Sunday afternoon in Texas Stadium with Green Bay wide receivers James Lofton and John Jefferson that he couldn't sleep Saturday night. And he definitely didn't snooze Sunday afternoon. He spent a great deal of the Cowboys 37-26 victory going one-on-one with Jefferson, and stopping the feared "JJ" cold. Jefferson caught two harmless passes for 40 harmless yards, while Thurman was intercepting Packer quarterback Lynn Dickey three times and returning one of them 39 yards for a touchdown that gave Dallas a 20-7 halftime lead.

ON MOST Saturday nights before Cowboys' games, Thurman sleeps like a baby. But The Night Before Jefferson he tossed and turned and counted several herds of sheep. He played the game in his mind, running and cutting with John and wondering if he would handle it. He handled it. "To be honest with you I probably slept four hours last (Saturday) night," Thurman said as he gladly described his performance against Green Bay.

"I was up at 3:30, watched TV, and finally got up at seven and went to church. I came out feeling good. "The last two weeks I haven't slept much the night before (the games). But if it'll help me play the way I've been playing I won't sleep at all next week." Thurman's first interception Sunday came with 1:30 left in the first half and put Green Bay in a 20-7 hole at halftime. His second came five plays later and this third came in the Dallas end zone with 1:04 left in the game on Green Bay 's last gasp.

"A LOT OF guys psyche themselves out when they have to play Lofton and Jefferson," Thurman said. "Looking at the films, I think that's what happened to the St. Louis defensive backs last week. It looked like they got psyched out. "They looked like they were just trying to survive and you have to be aggressive.

You can't think about who you're playing. These guys (Lofton and Jefferson) aren't going to the Pro Bowl for nothing." Nathan, who rushed 19 times for 83 yards and caught eight passes for 55 yards. "They want what we want," Nathan said of the Jets, "and we both can't go." DAVID WOODLEY, who completed 17 of 22 passes for 195 yards and two touchdowns, said he hoped Miami's recent string of success continues. "The Jets have always been tough. We're just going to have to keep doing the things we've been doing and hope for the best, hope we can win and go on to the big game.

"We've had three good weeks in a row now, and two more is what we're hoping for," Woodley added. The Chargers, adding to their reputation of losing the big games, said they would not be preoccupied with looking back. "We lost it together," said running back James Brooks. "There's nothing you can do about it except get ready for next season. We'll be there next year, no doubt about it." SAN DIEGO safety Tim Fox, in his first year with the Chargers after coming over from the New England Patriots, was asked whether he thought the Dolphins were a Super Bowl-caliber team.

"Who knows?" he replied. "This has been a very strange year. I don't know what a Super Bowl team is. I thought we were one." MIAMI The dejected San Diego Chargers made no excuses for their 34-13 loss to the Miami Dolphins Sunday in their American Conference semifinal playoff. But the players and coaches admitted the team failed to play up to its capabilities.

"They played steady; we played in spurts," San Diego wide receiver Wes Chandler said of the Dolphins. "When you're in the playoffs, you can't play in spurts." CHARGERS COACH Don Coryell cited turnovers seven of them and missed scoring opportunities as San Diego's dream of a shot at the Super Bowl vanished. "I don't think we played as well as we're capable of playing," Coryell said. "But don't take anything away from them because they certainly played a fine game. "We didn't play our best game.

We would have had to play our best game against Miami to have a chance to beat them. We didn't do it." The Dolphins, meanwhile, looked ahead to next Sunday's AFC Championship against the New York Jets, two-time losers to Miami during the regular National Football League season. "I don't think anybody in this locker room is taking them lightly," said Miami running back Tony MS UI's marrow 0ss stfiirs sadl mommies i mi Ipepipoirs Womigs By JAMES TINNEY Staff Writer It only took two weeks for the Big Ten basketball season to take on a hauntingly familiar look to the Michigan State Spartans. The Spartans' last-second loss to Minnesota Saturday had to provoke memories in the MSU locker room of the bad old days of 1982 when they were within three points or less in the final three minutes of 11 of their 12 conference losses. "Shades of last year," said MSU Coach Jud Heathcote after the 69-67 decision.

"I always say to be a factor in the race, you have to win your close games. The success of any season revolves around your success in close games, because you have so many." SURE ENOUGH, the Spartans are 1-1 in close decisions, including a two-point win over Iowa, and are also at .500, 2-2, in Big Ten play. Although the gap between the 3-1 Golden Gophers, the league leaders, and the 2-2 Spartans seems small, the loss left MSU as just another of the masses in the middle of the Big Ten race. Making it to the top won't be easy, especially since the climb starts with a date at Indiana Thursday. "We think we can play with anyone in the league, but we played with anyone in the league last year and we ended up 6-12," Heathcote said.

"We've always been competitive, yet we haven't been very successful the last few years. "We've got the kind of club that is going to get better and going to grow. It's going to take us five or six Big Ten games to get where we hoped we'd be at the start of the (Big Ten) season, but we're going to have to win some of those games or else we'll spend all season clawing from the bottom trying to get up." THE SPARTANS future pros pects were on display in those hectic final minutes, with freshmen Scott Skiles, Patrick Ford, and Larry Po-lec (who sat out last year with an injury) all seeing extensive action down the stretch. The team's prospects for this season could depend, on how fast those talented, but inexperienced, players mature in the next couple weeks, Thursday's opponent Indiana is likely to be back on top of the national rankings this week after winning two straight Big Ten road games last week. After playing at Bloomington, the Spartans move on to Ohio State Saturday, and host Illinois and Purdue the following week.

The latter three teams are, like the Spartans, bunched in the middle of the league, and those are the teams MSU must beat if it hopes to become upper middle class. The Hoosiers put on one of their most impressive performances of the season in the first half at West Lafayette Saturday, blowing out to a 20-point lead. Then they had to hold off a furious Purdue rally for an 81-78 decision. OTHER SATURDAY games saw Michigan join Michigan State at 2-2 in conference play with a surprisingly difficult 62-57 victory over win-less Wisconsin. Leslie Rockymore and Tim McCormick led Michigan's offense with 23 and 17 points, respectively.

Ohio State completed a 0-2 road trip by losing to Illinois, 63-55. Iowa coasted past Iowa State, 73-56, in nonconf erence play. The top game on Thursday's Big Ten schedule will be played at Minneapolis where Minnesota will be seeking to protect its one-half game lead against Iowa. Michigan travels to Ohio State and Northwestern is at Wisconsin in other Thursday games. Illinois at Purdue kicks off the week's schedule in Wednesday night's televised contest.

its CHICAGO (AP) The Chicago Black Hawks peppered home three quick goals while Detroit's Dwight Foster was cooling his heels in the penalty box for high-sticking, a call that the Red Wings said cost them the game. A tangle of bodies in the Chicago goal crease during the second period led to high-sticking penalties for both Foster and Dave Feamster; but Foster drew five minutes for allegedly cutting Feamster in the face. That allowed Chicago to field its vaunted power play and the Black Hawks skated away with a 4-2 National Hockey League victory Sunday night. 1 THE RED WINGS said it wasn't fair. "The real problem happened when Foster got the major penalty," Red Wing coach and assistant general manager Nick Polano said.

"The Hawk goalie was responsible for Feamster getting hit, but the referee did not see it that way. "(Doug) Wilson's goal not only put the Hawks ahead, but the crowd charged up the team, and when they got their second goal less than a minute later, it really did us in," Po' lano said. AL SECORD'S 13th power play goal of the season capped the three goal spree that lifted the Hawks to only their fourth win in their last 11 games. Chicago, now 28-11-7, padded its lead over idle Minnesota to eight points in the NHL's Norris Division. The Red Wings fell to their 24th setback against 11 wins and 12 ties.

Hawk goalie Murray Bannerman See WINGS, Page 5C 5 i BIG MEN BATTLE Michigan State's Kevin Willis and Minnesota 's Randy Breuer duel underneath the basket in Saturday night's Golden Gopher triumph. SAM SLAMS Michigan State guard Sam Vincent soars for a dunk in Saturday night's 69-67 Big Ten basketball loss to Minnesota. Photos by EILEEN BLASS.