NORTH MANCHESTER - Being the perfect hostess was not in the cards for Manchester senior Amber Fratus Saturday.
Hosting the Rochester Zebras in a Three Rivers Conference game, Fratus scored a career-high 26 points on 9-for-11 shooting, to go with 12 rebounds, as the Lady Squires dominated the Zebras 58-25.
"Amber had a great game tonight," Manchester coach Mark Underwood said. "She has struggled at the free-throw line throughout the year. We have a great coaching staff and coach Janna Simcoe has worked with Amber on her free throws and it has paid off as she went 8-for-11 from the line. She also did a great job defensively."
Manchester went on a 5-0 run to start the game after Jessica Bedke hit a three-point basket and never looked back.
"This was an unexpected result tonight," Underwood said. "I believe it was a combination of everything was going right for us and Rochester having an off night. If we played them again it would probably be a different result. I am proud of the girls for capitalizing on the opportunities."
Manchester's defense held Rochester's Ellexis Lindsey to 2-for-12 shooting from the field and 4-4 from the charity stripe.
On the night, Rochester shot a woeful 8 for 55 from the floor.
"That was part of our game plan coming in was to stop Lindsey," Underwood said. "You have to give credit to Meika Kennedy and Becka Guthrie who defended her most of the night. They did a great job of keeping her out of the game."
Rochester shot 4 for 29 in the first half as they went into the locker room down 22-11 at the break.
The Lady Squires were playing their fourth game of the week due to cancellations and rescheduling, while Rochester was playing its first game of the week.
"We were fortunate that we had three of the four here at home which helps," Underwood said. "We also had few problems in two of the games allowing us to rest our starters more. If we played some tough closer games we may have been more tired and the results may have been different."
Squires senior Katie Bowers scored seven points on the night all in the second half. Bowers had two steals both coming on resulting in her going coast to coast. She also had nine rebounds and seven assists.
"Katie only scored seven points, but she had many assists and key rebounds," Underwood said. "Another Rochester player hard to defend is Hannah Starkey, and Katie did a nice job of defending her,"
Manchester finished the game with 22-for-55 shooting from the field and 11 for 18 from the free-throw line.
Jessica Bedke contributed to the Lady Squire offense with 12 points, including two three-point baskets.
Noelle Patrick finished with 11 points on 4-for-8 shooting from the field. Patrick also added seven rebounds was 2-4 from three-point range.
"The girls did an great job tonight," Underwood said. "We have preached all year about playing hard whether you are way behind or way ahead. They did that tonight. That is a mark of a good team. They just never gave up and kept going hard."
Manchester plays its final home game Tuesday against Triton at 6:15 p.m.
