NORTH MANCHESTER - Wawasee coach Randy Aalbregtse gave his basketball players one last message before they left for their road game against Manchester Thursday evening. "I told my kids on the bus just before we left, 'This team plays as hard as you play,'" Aalbregtse said."I knew it was going to be a dogfight." He couldn't have been more right. This is not the same Squires team of years past.Those teams often folded the moment they stepped on the floor.This is not the case with this year's Squires, who harangued and harassed the undefeated Warriors before losing 45-40.Wawasee, 7-0, had won its previous three games by 12 points or more.The Squires fell to 4-3. The Warriors won because they were able to contain 5-foot-8 Manchester sophomore Megan Eckert, who entered the game 10th in the state in scoring with 23 points per game.She had scored at least 17 in each of her first six games, but she had just 10 on 3-of-12 shooting against Wawasee.
Jeff Holsinger, Times-Union Staff Writer- | July 28, 2016