RAY SWANSON | Keystoner Grove City men, W & amp;J women favored in hoops polls

If you believe in preseason basketball polls, better put your chips on Grove City College's men's team and Washington & amp; Jefferson's women's team to cart away the PAC championships this season.
As for me, I don't put too much stock in those preseason things. Somehow they don't always wind up the way the prognosticators believe they will.
Somewhere down the line, some individual decided to send out the idea of forecasting the toughest teams. Ben Franklin once said, "The height of foolishness is to discard an idea without proper investigation."
Pre-season polls do have the proper investigation. The people who make these selections are conference coaches, sports information directors and usually members of the media. Now I ask you, who is better qualified to make these selections?
And so it was, recently at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh, where the 2003-04 Presidents' Athletic Conference preseason polls were formulated and released.
The Grove City men and the W & amp;J women are the defending champions and are expected to repeat. The Wolverines pulled in 108 points as compared to second-place pick Westminster with 72 points. Following are Thiel (65), Bethany (62), Waynesburg (46), and W & amp;J (45).
On the women's side, W & amp;J captured 111 points, followed by Bethany with 86, Grove City 77, Waynesburg 57, Westminster 45, and Thiel 23.
Grove City's Wolverines, under coach Steve Lamie, earned 17 of 19 first-place votes to lead the poll. The Wolverines edged Thiel 60-59 in the 2002-03 PAC title game. This season, however, GCC will be without the services of its leading scorer who is on the injured list and will supposedly be out for some time.
So do Lamie's Wolverines wear the bulls-eye target this year?
It's going to be a tough circuit this year," Lamie said. "Because every game is a battle. We know we have the bull's-eye on our backs this year."
Westminster is operating under first-year coach Larry Ondako this season. He was a former Westminster College standout.
Westminster opened the season this past weekend when it hosted the Buzz Ridl Classic. The Titan women's team, coached by Rosanne Scott, in her second year, traveled to the College of Wooster to compete in the Nan Nichols Classic.
Class act
Sports fans from Mercer County were puling hard for the Big Reds of West Middlesex High School and Rick Resatar's band certainly didn't let them down.
Not only did the Big Reds enjoy a banner season, but they carried their attack all the way to PIAA Inter-District Playoffs. The Big Reds finally met their match in Clarion-Limestone, 33-14. West Middlesex led 7-6 in the second quarter of that one.
Before their departure from the playoff trail, the Reds laid claim to the Mercer County Athletic Conference title, the District crown and back-to-back nine-win seasons. The Reds were the defending MCAC and D-10 champions.
Record wrecker
Thiel College's running back Justin Napotnik, a senior, capped his career in style last week when he set a school single-game rushing record of 225 yards and two touchdowns.
A product of Sharpsville High, Napotnik broke the former record held by Bob Witherup (207) in 1971.