NORTH MANCHESTER - The 1983 Chicago White Sox, who won 99 games and finished 20 games ahead of second place in the division, were tagged with the slogan "Winnin' Ugly."

Manchester's girls basketball team knows winning ugly. The Squires have been doing it recently. They did it again Thursday night. The 15-2 Squires overcame a 38-38 tie at the end of the third quarter with a 5-11 Tippecanoe Valley team to win 61-51.

Is this what you call winning ugly, Coach Jody Shewman?

"Real ugly," the Manchester coach said. "And it is a 'W.' But it wasn't pretty."

Pretty or ugly, Manchester improved to 5-0 in the Three Rivers Conference. The Squires also maintained their dominance at home, upping their record to 7-0 with one home game to play, against Rochester on Feb. 5. Six of those seven wins have been by 10 points or more.

Manchester's Megan Eckert, Katie Parker and Jodie Peden have combined to average around 40 points per game. They played well at the same time on the court for about 4 1/2 minutes out of 32 minutes against Valley.

But those 4 1/2 minutes came at a crucial time - the start of the fourth quarter, when the teams were tied at 38.

The trio scored Manchester's first 15 points of the quarter, sparking a 15-3 run that increased the Squires' lead to 53-41 and put the game out of reach with 3:43 to play. Parker scored six, Peden five and Eckert four during the stretch.

Before then, Peden was the only one who'd done much, with 11 points, three rebounds and three assists before the fourth quarter.

Eckert? She was ineffective and spent the last couple of minutes of the second quarter and most of the third quarter on the bench. She came in averaging 18 points per game. She had four points going into the fourth.

Parker? She, too, spent time on the bench. She battled foul trouble, picking up her third foul before halftime and her fourth with four minutes to go in the third.

"I talked to them at halftime, about how you can't take anything for granted," Shewman said. "A lot of times we were. They have to realize everybody's going to be out to get us. They don't realize that yet. I yelled at them."

When Walters looked back at this game, he looked at the last two minutes of the third quarter. Valley erased a 30-20 halftime deficit to tie it three times in those two minutes - 34-34, 36-36, 38-38.

But the Vikings could never hit that one crucial basket, the one that would give them the lead and the momentum. They had several chances under the basket, but those shots rolled out.

"The thing of it is, even when we were tied, we had two or three possessions where we had a chance to go up on them," Valley coach Mike Walters said. "We had good shots. We just weren't able to finish them off. I think that may have been the determining factor of the game, if we could have got up on them once."

The Squires would have never had their 30-20 lead if it wasn't for their reserves. The Squires broke an 18-18 tie in the second quarter with a 12-2 run. Freshman Jessica Hicks, reserve Jodee Ruppel, reserve Carrie White and reserve Christy Markstahler scored the last eight points of the quarter.

These are not the names of the girls who have typically carried the Squires, but they did in the second quarter on this night.

"Our bench really stepped up in the second quarter," Shewman said. "I needed something. I took a big chance. I took a big risk. It worked. If we could just play like we did in the second quarter, we'd be a lot better."

Peden led Manchester with 16 points. Parker added 13. Hicks, who is improving every game, tallied 10 points and eight rebounds.

Kelly Walters led Valley with 16 points, while Rhonda Doud added 13. Andria Parker had 11 points, nine rebounds and six steals.

Valley may have dropped to 2-3 in the TRC, but the Vikings have been in every conference game - this loss to Manchester was their biggest loss, and this game was tied after three quarters.

"We talked about this as an opportunity to beat what we think could be the TRC champs," Walters said. "Our record's not what we want, but our girls' attitudes are where we want them -Êworking hard. Any game, all you ask is to be in a position where you have a chance to win at the end. We had a chance at the end of the third quarter to get up on them."

While Manchester may be 15-2 overall, 5-0 in the TRC and 7-0 at home, Shewman admitted all is not well right now with her Squires. In their last three games, they have edged an inferior Northfield team by only five (54-49), lost at Warsaw 53-40 and now won "real ugly" over Valley. Eckert, previously automatic for 20 points, is struggling with her shot. She has scored just 17 over two games on 6-of-23 shooting from the field and 4-of-10 shooting from the free-throw line.

"We have a tendency to play to the level of the team we're playing," Shewman said. "I'm not putting Valley down or anything, but our girls were more fired up for Warsaw than for Valley. That comes with the territory. We've done that all year. We'll try to fix that, and go from there.

"I'm just a little concerned about the direction we're going. We just finished talking about that." [[In-content Ad]]