By Patrick Klein

Arizona Daily Wildcat

In between the arrival of an inflatable doll and the silly string, Reggie Geary almost brought the Wildcats back from the jaws of certain defeat last night in a wild "Lame For A Game" before about 7,000 fans at McKale Center.

With 12 minutes to go and the Wildcats getting throttled by the Wildchairs 49-22, the sophomore guard got lost in the pandemonium of the game and craftily made his way to the scorers' table.

The quick-fingered Geary then was able to take control of the scoring machine and put 26 quick points on the board to cut the deficit to a workable 50-48.

But it was not enough, as the Wildchairs, paced by Glen Rosenberg's 21 points and Augustine Mendoza's 17, including the game winner with 12 seconds left, held off the late charge to win 71-69. The victory broke the team's four-game losing streak in the annual game.

"They managed to sneak back on us late, but we hung on," Rosenberg said.

Looking like they were negotiating around pylons, the Wildchairs, members of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association, breezed through the stumbling Wildcat defense all game long, leaving the national semifinalists grasping at air, and Kevin Flanagan hitting the floor.

For Flanagan, his last game on the McKale floor will certainly be a memor-able one, if only for the floor burns he sustained. His numerous flops did nothing to quell his competitive spirit, however, as he wisely tossed his chair aside midway through the contest and became a chauffeur, pushing Khalid Reeves up the court.

The problem for Reeves, who was used sparingly, was that he couldn't stop after Flanagan let go of the chair and had to leap out of it before he collided with a Wildchair.

Even before his scoreboard prank, Geary was a marked man because he and Jason Richey appeared on court with squirt guns blazing. Those guns were silenced quickly, however, the Wildchairs had answers to everything the Wildcats did.

The Wildchairs used quadruple-barreled arrow guns to hinder any WiIdcat that dared wander over to their bench area, especially senior Dylan Rigdon, who was showered with arrows, probably in retaliation for his participation in a halftime promotion where he dressed up as a sumo wrestler, complete with the blue diaper and a black plastic head, to wrestle with a fan. His teammates were so excited to see Rigdon win the contest that they dogpiled him.

Besides almost stealing the game, Geary stole the show. After the Wildchairs jumped him with 10 cans of silly string, Geary found a friend. An inflatable doll, which was strapped to a chair, was rescued by Geary after a Bobby Knight look-a-like attempted to head butt the helpless doll into submission.

As Geary rolled away with the doll, announcer Dave Sitton commented that "Reggie Geary has found a date." This was before the doll's pants mysteriously fell off while in Geary's lap.

"We were in a four-year slump," said Dave Herr-Cardillo, the Wildchairs' coach . "There was no way the players wanted to lose this one.

"But Reggie definitely looked at home with the doll."