NORTH MANCHESTER – Losses can be a great teaching tool. Manchester girls basketball coach Mark Underwood certainly hopes his team has learned from its 38-33 setback on Dec. 16 to county rival Southwood. Manchester will get a chance to avenge that loss Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the Class 2A sectional at Wabash High School. Manchester takes a 15-5 record into the game, while Southwood is 6-14 “We think they’re a tough opponent, they’re one of our five losses,” Underwood said of Southwood. “Sometimes losses can help you out in certain situations. I think this is one of those times. It’s easy to look at their record and overlook them, but we’re not going to let that happen. They beat us, and we know we have to play well to win this time. We’re not going to take any team lightly.” Oak Hill (16-4) and host Wabash (15-5), the only other teams in the seven-team sectional with a winning record, open play Tuesday at 7 p.m. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Northfield (8-12) and North Miami (2-18) square off. On Friday at 6 p.m., Cass (6-13) faces the winner of Oak Hill and Wabash, followed by the winners of Games 2 & 3. The championship game is slated for 7:30 p.m. Saturday. “I really think the sectional is wide open,” said Underwood, whose team is looking for its first sectional championship since 2007. “We have total respect for every team in the sectional. Any team can beat any team right now. I really think it’s wide open.” It may be cliche, but Underwood should know as well as anybody that any team can beat any team on a given day. Wabash is 7-1 against the rest of the sectional field this season – the one loss coming to Manchester. Manchester, however, has also lost to Wabash. The Lady Squires lost to Southwood. It took overtime for them to North Miami. When Underwood says it comes down to what team that shows up that day, he’s not kidding. “We can’t look ahead, we know that,” said Underwood. “We know if we’re not focused on Southwood, there may not be a next game. If we look ahead, bad things could happen.” When they lost to Southwood in Dec., Underwood said his team struggled shooting the ball and turned it over a number of times. “We had a ton of unforced turnovers in that game, around 30 of them” said Underwood. “They didn’t press us, but we had problems turning it over. We held them to 38 points, and we believe if we hold a team under 40 points we have a chance. We’ve got to do a better job taking care of the ball this time.” Junior Kayla Flack leads the Lady Squires in scoring with 14 points per game, while senior Hannah Little adds eight points per game and seniors Meika Kennedy, Hanna Schmidt and Kaylee Watson chip in with close to six points each. With its 5-2 record in the TRC, Manchester shared the conference championship with Rochester, Valley and Wabash. Of the Lady Squires’ five loss, three were by five points or less. “I know the girls are not satisfied,” said Underwood. “Getting a share of the conference championship is nice, but we hope, if we stay focused, other good things are going to happen.” Manchester enters sectional play having won eight of its last 10 games.
