Manchester Scoring Runs Dry In Loss To Warsaw
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
NORTH MANCHESTER -ÊWhen tonight's game with Wawasee is over, Warsaw's girls basketball team will have faced three of the top scorers in the state in the last 24 hours.
Tonight the Tigers travel to Wawasee to face Shanna Zolman and the Warriors. Zolman, a freshman, leads the state in scoring with 31.8 points per game.
Tuesday night they played at Manchester, where they faced Megan Eckert, Jessica Hicks and the rest of the Squires.
Eckert, a 5-foot-9 senior guard, entered the game ninth in the state at 24.8 points per game. Hicks, a 5-10 sophomore, was averaging 20.1 points per game.
They combined for only 19 on 7-of-22 shooting as the Tigers pulled away late to win 53-34. Eckert hit 4 of 13 for nine points, while Hicks hit 3 of 9 for six points.
"I'm not knocking Manchester, but we knew two players were obviously much of their offense," Warsaw coach Will Wienhorst said.
How did the Tigers hold them to 19 instead of their usual 45 per game?
"We wanted to keep Hicks from getting the ball in the low post," Wienhorst said. "Once Eckert gave the ball up, we wanted to make it hard for her to get it back."
Warsaw junior Sara Parker led all scorers with 17. Eckert led the Squires with 13 points.
Warsaw plays four players 5-11 or taller. Manchester plays only two taller than 5-10, and only one of them, Hicks, is a scoring threat. Manchester coach Keri Nichols knew knocking down perimeter shots would be crucial.
"Hicks got good looks but just missed her shots," Nichols said. "We knew it would be tough to score inside against Warsaw. Our plan was to hit from outside and hope that would open up their zone a little bit, which we started to do at one point."
The Squires stuck with the Tigers until the last two minutes of the third quarter. Hicks' steal and layup with 2:16 to go in the third quarter closed Warsaw's lead to 33-30. The Tigers outscored Manchester 20-4 the rest of the way.
"We play a lot of players," Wienhorst said. "We wore them down in the second half."
Manchester closed the gap to three after trailing 29-19 at halftime as Warsaw's offense came from only one person - Parker - through much of the second half.
Still, Parker alone was enough to make sure the Squires never claimed the lead. Parker scored Warsaw's first 15 points of the second half, all eight in the third quarter and the first seven of the fourth quarter.
"(Warsaw) finally started hitting shots we were giving them all night," Nichols said. "That No. 23 (Parker) had eight points in the third quarter ... she hit shots we had to give them because of the height difference."
No other Tiger scored in the second half until the 4:15 mark of the last quarter, when Jenna Rooney's three-pointer pushed Warsaw's lead to 47-30.
Two things stood out about Parker's performance: One, she scored only two points in the first half. Two, the 17 points are a career high.
"I would say people are going to look at Sara's offense, but also the way she played defense and the way she hit the boards, it was the best half of basketball of her career," Wienhorst said. "It followed one of the poorest halves of her career. In the first half she didn't shoot the ball well and wasn't doing what we asked her to do."
While both teams played ragged at times - they combined for 48 turnovers - Warsaw's rebounding, especially in the first half, more than made up for sloppy ball-handling. The Tigers grabbed 28 rebounds - in the first half - and finished with 42.
Their offensive rebounding hurt Manchester in the form of second-chance scoring opportunities in the first half. They grabbed 14 offensive rebounds in the quarter, and five times they turned offensive rebounds into putbacks for easy points as the Squires failed to block out.
The Tigers also won despite seeing leading scorer Katie Elliott saddled with foul trouble. The 6-foot-2 senior center, who averages 17.1 points per game, picked up her third foul with 4:11 to go in the second quarter and her fourth foul with 6:02 left in the third. Even in limited minutes, she led Warsaw with nine rebounds and finished with eight points.
Manchester, 6-7 overall and 1-2 in the Three Rivers Conference, is at Tippecanoe Valley (6-6, 1-1 TRC) at 6:15 p.m. Thursday.
Warsaw, 9-2 overall and 3-0 in the Northern Lakes Conference, is at Wawasee (9-2, 1-1 NLC) at 6:15 this evening.
Zolman scored a career-high 43 Saturday against Tippecanoe Valley. If Warsaw's defense can contain her the way it contained Eckert and Hicks, who combine for 60 percent of Manchester's offense, Wienhorst will be happy. [[In-content Ad]]
NORTH MANCHESTER -ÊWhen tonight's game with Wawasee is over, Warsaw's girls basketball team will have faced three of the top scorers in the state in the last 24 hours.
Tonight the Tigers travel to Wawasee to face Shanna Zolman and the Warriors. Zolman, a freshman, leads the state in scoring with 31.8 points per game.
Tuesday night they played at Manchester, where they faced Megan Eckert, Jessica Hicks and the rest of the Squires.
Eckert, a 5-foot-9 senior guard, entered the game ninth in the state at 24.8 points per game. Hicks, a 5-10 sophomore, was averaging 20.1 points per game.
They combined for only 19 on 7-of-22 shooting as the Tigers pulled away late to win 53-34. Eckert hit 4 of 13 for nine points, while Hicks hit 3 of 9 for six points.
"I'm not knocking Manchester, but we knew two players were obviously much of their offense," Warsaw coach Will Wienhorst said.
How did the Tigers hold them to 19 instead of their usual 45 per game?
"We wanted to keep Hicks from getting the ball in the low post," Wienhorst said. "Once Eckert gave the ball up, we wanted to make it hard for her to get it back."
Warsaw junior Sara Parker led all scorers with 17. Eckert led the Squires with 13 points.
Warsaw plays four players 5-11 or taller. Manchester plays only two taller than 5-10, and only one of them, Hicks, is a scoring threat. Manchester coach Keri Nichols knew knocking down perimeter shots would be crucial.
"Hicks got good looks but just missed her shots," Nichols said. "We knew it would be tough to score inside against Warsaw. Our plan was to hit from outside and hope that would open up their zone a little bit, which we started to do at one point."
The Squires stuck with the Tigers until the last two minutes of the third quarter. Hicks' steal and layup with 2:16 to go in the third quarter closed Warsaw's lead to 33-30. The Tigers outscored Manchester 20-4 the rest of the way.
"We play a lot of players," Wienhorst said. "We wore them down in the second half."
Manchester closed the gap to three after trailing 29-19 at halftime as Warsaw's offense came from only one person - Parker - through much of the second half.
Still, Parker alone was enough to make sure the Squires never claimed the lead. Parker scored Warsaw's first 15 points of the second half, all eight in the third quarter and the first seven of the fourth quarter.
"(Warsaw) finally started hitting shots we were giving them all night," Nichols said. "That No. 23 (Parker) had eight points in the third quarter ... she hit shots we had to give them because of the height difference."
No other Tiger scored in the second half until the 4:15 mark of the last quarter, when Jenna Rooney's three-pointer pushed Warsaw's lead to 47-30.
Two things stood out about Parker's performance: One, she scored only two points in the first half. Two, the 17 points are a career high.
"I would say people are going to look at Sara's offense, but also the way she played defense and the way she hit the boards, it was the best half of basketball of her career," Wienhorst said. "It followed one of the poorest halves of her career. In the first half she didn't shoot the ball well and wasn't doing what we asked her to do."
While both teams played ragged at times - they combined for 48 turnovers - Warsaw's rebounding, especially in the first half, more than made up for sloppy ball-handling. The Tigers grabbed 28 rebounds - in the first half - and finished with 42.
Their offensive rebounding hurt Manchester in the form of second-chance scoring opportunities in the first half. They grabbed 14 offensive rebounds in the quarter, and five times they turned offensive rebounds into putbacks for easy points as the Squires failed to block out.
The Tigers also won despite seeing leading scorer Katie Elliott saddled with foul trouble. The 6-foot-2 senior center, who averages 17.1 points per game, picked up her third foul with 4:11 to go in the second quarter and her fourth foul with 6:02 left in the third. Even in limited minutes, she led Warsaw with nine rebounds and finished with eight points.
Manchester, 6-7 overall and 1-2 in the Three Rivers Conference, is at Tippecanoe Valley (6-6, 1-1 TRC) at 6:15 p.m. Thursday.
Warsaw, 9-2 overall and 3-0 in the Northern Lakes Conference, is at Wawasee (9-2, 1-1 NLC) at 6:15 this evening.
Zolman scored a career-high 43 Saturday against Tippecanoe Valley. If Warsaw's defense can contain her the way it contained Eckert and Hicks, who combine for 60 percent of Manchester's offense, Wienhorst will be happy. [[In-content Ad]]