Junior Year

1999-2000

This is the beginning of stories and links for Jessica's junior year at Manchester High School.

Volleyball

Jessica was again on the varsity volleyball team. The team only won 6 games, which was hard to understand, as they had so much talent on the team. Jessica made 2nd team all TRC and
1st team all Wabash County.

Basketball

Jessica's favorite sport! she worked hard all summer playing AAU, a St Francis College league and a Wawasse league. She also attended the University of Tennesse summer camp, in which she was named an All-American All*Star. The first game is November 12, 1999. This year's team is very young. I believe we will start out slow, but should get it together near the end. Jessica has been named to Hoosier Basketball 4th Team All-State. On 12/2/99 Jessica was named "Dead-eye Doris" in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, the story follows. She also was named as a member of the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel Fanastic Five. The story (released 11/4/99) follows. Also here is two pictures from the story. Jessica is wearing black, number 52.
Picture number one
Picture number two

NEWS

IHSAA Top Scorers
Game 1 11/12/99
Game 3 11/23/99
Game 4 11/27/99
Game 6 12/4/99
Wawasee Tourney
Game 9 12/16/99
Game 11 1/4/00
Game 12 1/10/00
Game 14 1/15/00
Game 15 1/18/00
Pic from Game 15
Game 16 1/25/00
Game 18 2/2/00

Fort Wayne News-Sentinel

Head and shoulders above the rest

Whether they know it or not, this year's girls basketball Fantastic Five players have all been striving for the same thing since the first time each picked up a basketball. Perfection is their goal. Overall perfection. These girls want to be the best at everything -- shooting, dribbling, passing, rebounding and defending. They want success, and hard work is the only way to achieve it. So they get up each day and ask themselves how they can be better basketball players. It's just part of the game. With their natural talents and a lot of sweat, each of this year's Fantastic Five is very close to reaching the top of her game. Those chosen are Bishop Luers junior guard Rachel King, Columbia City senior guard/forward Connie Myers, Elmhurst junior forward Maria Marchesano, Manchester junior forward Jessica Hicks and West Noble senior forward Stacey Byers. Together they form a team that has everything a high school coach could want. They have skills, to be frank. And it's their constant quest to hone those skills that makes them so good. Take a look at any one of this year's Fantastic Five, and you'll see a complete player. Whether they're tall like Hicks, a 6-footer, or small for their position, like Byers -- who plays power forward at 5-foot-9 -- they can do it all. It's near perfection, and it's what they've been aiming for all along.

Reaching the Summitt

Jessica Hicks went down to Knoxville, Tenn., to the University of Tennessee's women's basketball camp this summer thinking she'd play hard, listen well and come away with some bit of extra basketball knowledge that would make her a better player. She got all that and something else, too -- an All-Star Award in her age division, which is impressive considering there were roughly 200 kids her age in attendance. Hicks was one of the top 15 chosen for her performance at the camp. News like that makes high school coaches smile. "She plays basically wherever we need her," said Manchester coach Keri Nichols. "She worked hard this summer to improve herself. She's a great student of the game, and she's always looking to learn how to make herself better." The Tennessee camp instructors -- including the likes of head women's coach Pat Summitt -- found that out firsthand. "I must have done something to impress them," said Hicks, who averaged 18.6 points a game last season. "I was on the All-Star team for my age, and I was really shocked, to be honest. I don't know what it was." Shock is what Hicks hopes her opponents feel this winter. She thinks the Squires should be a tough team to contend with, and who can argue with a player who works as hard as Hicks does to win? "Every morning, I get up and go shoot free throws and three-pointers on the basket at the end of my driveway," Hicks said. "I think we'll surprise a lot of people." But if Hicks lights it up and leads the Squires in most categories, well, there won't be any shock in that.

News Sentinel Team Outlook 11/4/99

MANCHESTER

SCHEDULE

Nov. 12 Bluffton
Nov. 16 at Concordia
Nov. 23 Southwood
Nov. 27 Wabash
Dec. 2 at Whitko
Dec. 4 at Marion
Dec. 11 Wawasee Tournament
Dec. 16 Maconaquah
Dec. 28-29 County Tournament
Jan. 4 Central Noble
Jan. 10 North Miami
Jan. 13 at Triton
Jan. 15 at Northfield
Jan. 18 at Warsaw
Jan. 20 Tippecanoe Valley
Jan. 27 at Lewis Cass
Feb. 3 Rochester
Feb. 10 Oak Hill

ROSTER

Links to other sites on the Web

Fort Wayne News Sentinel Sports
Region Roundball Review
HoosierLand Report
Indiana's Game

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