Heading into the Wabash County Boys' Basketball Tournament at Northfield High School, all eyes were on the Manchester Squires. According to the coaches in the tournament, Manchester was the team to beat. The Squires would have to get past one of their biggest rivals, the host Northfield Norsemen.

Turn the calender back to last March, the second round of the Maconaquah sectional where these same Norsemen took on the favored Squires. It took three overtimes, but the underdog Norsemen upset the Squires 42-41.

It was deja-vu all over again for Manchester.

What was supposed to be a warm-up for Wednesday's championship game against Southwood (a 77-26 winner over Wabash), the Norsemen pulled off their second upset in 10 months, defeating Manchester 47-46 in Tuesday's first round of the 1999 Wabash County Tournament.

"This was a huge win for our basketball program,' Northfield coach Brian Tonsoni said. "Nobody in this county was giving us any chance to win this game. We needed to win a big game like this and I am so proud of our kids."

Obviously for the Squires, this was a tough one to swallow. It was the second time in a row against the Norsemen that they lost by one point.

"This game was close the whole way,' Manchester coach Gary Goshert said. "We just didn't execute when we needed to tonight. We had a lot of scrap, but give Northfield credit, they played hard.'

Both teams came out strong in the first quarter. Northfield scored the first three points of the game on Cory Brainard's three-point play. Manchester center Lee Shafer then scored five points in a row, giving the Squires a 5-3 lead. Northfield went on a 9-0 run and upped their lead to 12-5.

Both teams started to exhibit a fierce man-to-man defense. After cutting the lead to 14-10, Northfield's Kyle Merrick scored on a layup and was fouled. Merrick extended the lead to 17-10 on the free throw to push that lead back to seven. David Bazzoni finished the quarter with a jump shot for the Squires, cutting the Northfield lead to 17-12.

"We really didn't play well on the defensive end of the court tonight,' Goshert added. "We had to work a lot harder for things than Northfield did tonight.'

The second quarter was played at a high level on both ends. Bazzoni scored six points to lead the Squires in the second frame while Northfield struggled with the Squires' press. Manchester went on a 5-0 run to even the score at 21-21 with 4:42 in the quarter. With the defensive pressure getting better, both teams struggled to find a zone. Going into halftime, the score was tied at 25.

"Northfield really did a nice job of taking advantage of our mistakes,' Goshert said. "In key situations, they really stepped it up while we struggled."

After being tied at the break, the third quarter produced similar results. Kyle Merrick opened up the third with a layup to give the Norsemen a 27-25 lead. The Squires then found some fire in them, scoring the next seven points to take their biggest lead of the game at 32-27. David Bazzoni connected on a three-pointer and a baseline jumper to give them the lead. The Norsemen didn't crack, however. They tied the score at 35 on a tough inside shot by Cory Brainard. After three quarters of play, the score was right where we started: tied.

"We had a lot of chances to put this game out of reach,' Goshert said. "Our defense just wasn't as effective as it usually is.'

After playing three competitive quarters, fans knew from the fierce rivalry that this game would go down to the wire. Northfield struck first on Richie Sherman's three-pointer to start the quarter. That put the Norsemen up 38-35. Lee Shafer then cut the lead to one on a layup.

After going back and forth, the Norsemen looked to put the Squires away with a nice 5-0 run to up their lead to 45-39 with 3:45 to play. But knowing this rivalry, fans knew Manchester had one last run.

"I told our guys to hang in there,' Tonsoni said. "We played too hard to lose this game.'

Manchester fought back to take a 46-45 lead on two free-throws by Shafer with 29 seconds left. After two time-outs, Northfield's senior Jason Cordes, who struggled most of the game, was fouled with 17 seconds left. Cordes calmly sank both to give the Norsemen a one-point lead at 47-46.

After a Manchester time-out, the Squires went for the final shot, a shot that wasn't the best. Manchester settled for a three-pointer by Klay Bechtold that failed and the Norsemen held on for the huge upset.

"We had a lot of options at the end,' Goshert said. "We were really inconsistent all night. We will learn a lesson from this game.'

Northfield was led by Richie Sherman, who had 14 points. Sherman hit 5 of 6 shots, including 3 of 3 from three-point range. Kyle Merrick added 12 and Cory Brainard 10. Lee Shafer paced the Squires with 20 points. Bazzoni added 13.

With the win, Northfield advances to the championship game to face the Southwood Knights, a rematch of last year's final game that Southwood won. Manchester (4-3), losers of three out of its last four, takes on Wabash in today's 4:30 p.m. consolation game.

NORTHFIELD 47, MANCHESTER 46

Manchester (4-3) 12 13 10 11 - 46

Northfield (3-4) 17 8 10 12 - 47

Manchester FG FT A S R Pts.

Bazzoni (G) 6-10 0-0 1 1 6 13

Frieden (G) 1-7 0-0 2 1 2 3

Kerr (C) 0-1 0-0 2 0 2 0

Miller (F) 0-4 0-0 3 0 1 0

Shafer (F) 6-10 6-8 0 2 3 20

Bechtold 1-7 0-0 1 0 2 2

Lochner 1-4 2-2 0 0 2 4

Sorg 2-2 0-0 0 0 1 4

Totals 17-44 8-10 9 4 19 46

Northfield FG FT A S R Pts.

Cordes (G) 1-3 2-2 5 4 5 4

Swihart (G) 2-5 0-0 1 0 0 5

Brainard (C) 4-13 2-3 0 0 6 10

Smith (F) 0-2 0-1 0 0 0 0

K. Merrick 5-9 2-2 2 2 4 12

Sherman 5-6 1-2 2 1 1 14

J. Merrick 1-2 0-0 1 0 3 2

Totals 18-40 7-10 11 7 19 47

Three-point goals -ÊManchester (Bazzoni 1-1, Frieden 1-5, Shafer 2-3, Bechtold 0-5), Northfield 4-6 (Swihart 1-3, Sherman 3-3). Turnovers -ÊManchester 12, Northfield 19. Total fouls - Manchester 17, Northfield 14. Fouled out -ÊBazzoni, Brainard. [[In-content Ad]]