Manchester Squires

Basketball News

Eckert, Shewman get top honors

By Elemuel D. Williams
WABASH, Ind. — It's debatable whether Michael Jordan is the best player to ever grace the hardwood or whether Bobby Knight is the most eminent college coach to ever stalk the sidelines. However, it was no secret who would receive the1997-98 Wabash County Player and Coach of the Year awards in girls' basketball. For the second consecutive year, Manchester's Megan Eckert and Jody Shewman captured those honors. Last year, Shewman coached the Lady Squires to a 14-6 season, before losing to Huntington North in the semifinals of the Huntington North Sectional. This year, the Lady Squires were 21-4 and captured the Wabash County Tournament, the Three Rivers Conference (for the first time since 1984), in which they went undefeated, the Northfield Sectional (the first since 1984) and the Lewis Cass Regional (the first in the school's history), and they appeared in the finals of the Logansport Semistate. Eckert, only a junior, led Manchester in scoring for the second consecutive year, averaging 17.6 points per game. She also led the TRC in scoring with 17 points per game, after finishing second the previous year. In the first round of the semistate against Fort Wayne Luers, Manchester was struggling to gets its offense going and trailed at the end of the first quarter. Eckert, however, personally outscored Luers 12-10 in the second quarter to put Manchester ahead. In addition to Eckert, teammates Jodie Peden and Katie Parker were also named to the all-county first team along with Northfield's Staci White and Abby Wilson, who was tied with Southwood's Jill Sheets and Wabash's Gina Curtis. Peden was also on the first team last year. The 5-foot-6 senior averaged 10.8 points per game this season, including a 14-point performance to help the Lady Squires advance in the sectionals. Peden led the team in assists with 3.2 per game. Last year Parker was on the second team. This year she averaged 11.5 points per game and was a stalwart on defense as she led the team and the TRC with three steals per game. In the final TRC title game against Oak Hill, Parker, a senior, exploded for 22 points. Making the first team also was a step up for White. Last year she earned honorable mention. White was fourth in the TRC in scoring with 13 points a game. She shot 36 percent from the 3-point arc, averaged two steals a game and was named to the Northfield all-sectional team with Eckert and Wilson. As a freshman, Wilson made her presence known in the county. The 5-foot-11 forward/center was a starter for the Lady Norsemen and averaged 10 points in the TRC. This is Sheets second consecutive year on the first team. The 5-foor-4 senior averaged 11 points and was sixth in the TRC in assists with 3.3 per game. Despite Wabash's 1-20 season, sophomore Gina Curtis averaged 8.2 points per game and received honorable mention on the all-sectional team. Making their second appearance on the second team were Wabash's Tiffany Richards and Nikki Lisby. Also on the second team were Manchester's Jessica Hicks and Lindsay Seagert and Southwood's Brooke McKee. Honorable mention went Wabash's Jan Eichenauer, who suffered an injury earlier in the season, Northfield's Amy Brown and Whitney Baker, Manchester's Christy Markstahler and Southwood's Amanda Veverka. The voting was conducted by the county's four coaches, and they were not allowed to vote for their own players.

Lady Squires have score to settle

NORTH MANCHESTER, Ind. —The Manchester girls' basketball team is out to prove it is a better team than it was the first time it met Lewis Cass. Manchester and Lewis Cass will play in the IHSAA Class 2A regional at 7:30 Saturday at Maconquah. The winner will play in the Logansport semistate Saturday, March 7, against the winner of the Churubusco regional at 11:30 a.m. The winners from sectionals at South Adams and Knox will meet in the first game at 10 a.m. The championship game is set for 8:15 p.m. The Lady Squires (19-3) lost to Lewis Cass on Jan. 29, 53-50. Manchester, ranked ninth among Class 2A teams, trailed at halftime, 35-22. However, Manchester allowed Cass, 18-4 and ranked 10th, only six points in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Lady Kings 28-18 in the second half. Manchester head coach Jody Shewman said the difference between the first and second quarter was defense. Senior guard, Katie Parker, will lead the defensive crusade. Parker has 68 steals for the season and led the Three Rivers Conference with 3.4 steals per game. Parker also averages 11 points per game. "Defense is the key, "Shewman said. "We want to jump out on them right away. Our defense has gotten better and our players have got better." One player that has stepped up her performance is freshman Jessica Hick. She averaged 18 points in the Northfield sectional, including 12 points in the second half of the championship game against North Miami. Shewman said she doesn't plan to change Manchester's offense. "We're not changing much," she said. "We're going to move the ball around until we get good shots." Megan Eckert will lead the Lady Squires' attack. Eckert led the TRC in scoring the entire season and finished with a 17.8-point average. Megan had an explosive game against Cass in the first meeting, scoring 11 of her 23 points in the third quarter. Lewis Cass has three player averaging in double figures. Its leading scorer is Nicole Bauer at 11.8 points per game. Lindsay Chambers averages 11.1 and leads the team with 6.5 rebounds, and Jennifer Mehring averages 10.9 points. Cass coach Steve Ford said that to be successful his team needs to take care of the ball and eliminate turnovers. They committed 15 turnovers against the Lady Squires in the first meeting. Ford also said his team needs to contain the two players he calls Manchester's "best," Parker and Eckert.

Manchester Girls Claim TRC Title

By Jason Knavel, Times-Union Staff Writer
2/13/98- CONVERSE - Boy, how those Squires like to make it interesting. In a game to decide the Three Rivers Conference championship, Manchester shot just 24 percent from the floor in the first half in falling behind by as many as 12 points. But when the chips were down, the Squires turned up the heat on defense and ran away with a 51-36 win over Oak Hill on Thursday. Manchester came into the game with a 6-0 conference record. The Squires had already clinched a share of the TRC title, but a win would give them the championship by themselves. Oak Hill, on the other hand, was 5-1 in the TRC and could tie for the championship with the win. The Eagles, however, were without Erin Rhodes. She averages more than 14 points and 11 rebounds a game, and Oak Hill could have used her as only five Eagles scored the entire night and only two scored more than four points. Despite being without their top scorer and rebounder, Oak Hill was aggressive early. Katie Parker scored the first six points of the game for Manchester as the Squires went ahead 6-3. But Oak Hill scored the next 15 points to take an 18-6 lead with six minutes to play in the second quarter. Andrea Monroe stepped up in Rhodes’ absence and scored 10 first-quarter points on a pair of three-point plays. For the Squires, it reached the lowest point with 4:09 to play in the half. Trailing 20-10, the Squires got called for a foul and then the coaches got hit with a technical for arguing a call. But Oak Hill made only one free throw and couldn’t score on the ensuing possession and the Eagles went into the half with a 23-14 lead. “Coach Parker talked to them (at the half) before I went in,” Manchester head coach Jody Shewman said. “I needed them to hear something different for once. When I came in, I just talked to them about what we were doing wrong. I didn’t get angry. I just let them try to figure it out.” In the third quarter, Manchester turned it around. In the first 3-1/2 minutes of the third quarter, Oak Hill never attempted a shot and missed two free throws. The Squires forced Oak Hill into 11 third-quarter turnovers and they begin to hit some shots. “I told them we had to win it on the defensive end and they really responded,” Shewman said. Parker had seven points in the quarter and Megan Eckert added two field goals. The Squires scored five points in the opening minute to get to within four points. A Parker jumper with 5:43 to play gave the Squires a 24-23 lead. Oak Hill would score just two points in the quarter and Manchester went into the fourth with a 32-25 lead. Oak Hill seemed to regain some momentum with four straight points to start the final period to get back to within three points. But the Squires scored the next nine points to take a 41-29 lead. From there, the Squires just needed to hold on to the ball and they did that to get the easy win. Shewman knew that this was a good game to gauge exactly how ready her team was for sectional action. With the TRC title on the line against a good basketball team on the road and a hostile crowd in the stands, this game simulated the pressure of postseason basketball as well as any regular season game could. “We talked about that all week,” Shewman said. “I told them that they’ve got to be ready for all this stuff.” With some other players struggling to shoot the ball, Parker came up big for the Squires with 22 points, four rebounds and four steals. “She really took control and was a big spark for us,” Shewman said. Jessica Hicks was just 1 of 7 from the floor, but she came up with 12 rebounds on the night, seven offensively, to help Manchester to a 42-38 rebounding advantage. The Squires had 19 offensive rebounds on the night. Eckert had a rough night shooting as well, with just 10 points on 4-of-19 shooting. But on the defensive end, she came up with a team-high six steals. Manchester (17-3) will begin sectional action on Feb. 20 against Wabash at 6:30 p.m. That game will take place at Northfield.

Manchester girls win again

By Elemuel D. Williams
WABASH, Ind. — The Manchester Lady Squires defeated Northfield, 54-49, for the second time this season Saturday in a Three River Conference game. In their early meeting, the Lady Squires (14-1, 4-0) won, 74-33, in the championship game of the Wabash County Tourney. However the Lady Norsemen enter Saturday's game with a different attitude. The Lady Norsemen (2-12, 0-5) led 13-6 in the first quarter. Sophomore Staci White scored seven of her 20 points in the first quarter to break out of her three-game shooting slump. The Lady Squires fought back to take a 24-23 halftime lead and outscored the Lady Norsemen, 30-26, in the second half. Megan Eckert, Manchester's high-scoring junior forward, was held to two points in the first quarter and two free throws in the second quarter. However, she scored 15 points in the second half. She also added eight rebounds and three steals. Freshman Jesssica Hicks scored 11 points for the Lady Squires and Abby Wilson added 11 for the Lady Norsemen. Although his team came up short, Northfield coach Rob Cussen said his team played very well.

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