MANCHESTER, NH – Less than a month after earning a win over Goffstown High School in the annual Queen City Christmas tournament, the Manchester Memorial High School boys basketball team hosted the Grizzlies for a Friday night clash.
This time, the hot shooting of Goffstown (7-3) was more than the Crusaders could handle as the visitors drained seven first-half threes to build a seven-point first-half lead and then extended that in the second half to secure a 62-29 triumph.
Memorial, which dropped to 4-6, didn’t make it easy in the middle quarters, however.
After going down, 19-10, in the first quarter, the Crusaders had closed the gap to seven at halftime and remained within 10 heading into the fourth.
‘I think (the Crusaders) speed, athleticism, length helped, right? When we missed shots, they were able to get out and go, and they got some easy (baskets) in transition,” said Goffstown head coach Ryan Cowette. “I think, like most teams, you adjust to the zone when you see it every possession, and that was just a matchup thing that I thought gave us the best chance to win, defensively.”
Memorial head coach Danny Bryson was quick to point out that it’s tough to beat an opponent when you allow a team like Goffstown to get open looks.
“The game plan was to run them off the three-point line, so we didn’t do that well,” he said. “And then we were trading threes for twos, you know? Every time we were getting into it, they’d hit two threes, or make a run of their own … we caught them on a night when they were hitting shots and we weren’t making our own.”
Indeed, Goffstown senior sharpshooter Tyler Dionne drained four threes in the first quarter and five in the first half en route to a game-leading 25-point performance.
His classmate, Braeden Malley, contributed 15 markers, including four three-pointers, and Gio Santos added 11 points to the winning effort.
For the hosts, junior Eva Edokpolo had a team-high 17 points, and junior Joel Gomez, junior Dylan Jolicoeur and sophomore Eldan Taric provided eight, seven and six, respectively.
“I thought the energy and effort was good tonight. I thought we played well, ” said Bryson. “(The Grizzlies) just hit their shots, and then they got a lot of the 50/50 balls … so it just comes down to executing the game plan.”
The Crusaders now have a week to practice and prepare for its always-anticipated clash with cross-city for Manchester Central (2-7) next Friday, Jan. 30, at 6:30 p.m.
“That’s always going to be a battle,” said Bryson. “You know, our records can be 0-and-whatever and it’s going to be a fight.”
For many of the players, it’ll be their first real taste of the rivalry.
After all, the Memorial varsity roster this season includes two seniors – one of whom gets regular minutes – two sophomores and a freshman. The rest of the lettermen are juniors.
“We’re young, but I told (the players), ‘we’re more than halfway through the season, so we’re past the stage of being young and inexperienced, which we are, but you can’t be young, inexperience and immature.’ And there’s only one thing you can control out of those, so we’ve got to grow-up fast,'” he said. “You know, when you’re dealing with a team with no varsity experience, it’s trying to keep them buying into what we’re doing, especially on nights like tonight when they may get discouraged.”
And with eight games left in the season – including the Central clash – the time is now for the Crusaders to find their identity, said Bryson.
“I kind of know what we have, but we’re still trying to figure out who’s going to contribute for us,” said Bryson. “We’re not going to be a knock-down shooting team. We don’t have a Jack Brooks like last year, or someone we can kick It out to and know it’s going to go in, so we have a lot of athletic guys who have had JV success, but I keep telling them you can’t take that success and hope that it’s going to work on varsity, it’s a whole different beast. And they’re learning that, so we have the motivation, we have the talent, and now it’s just about coming together and buying into our game plan.”
Should the Crusaders do so, there’s still plenty of opportunity to move up the standings, something that wouldn’t surprise Cowette in the least.
“I think Danny always gets the most out of his guys. They always compete very hard. Their defensive intensity is unmatched,” he said. “They’re better than their record. They’ve played some really good teams, and they’re absolutely a team nobody is going to want to play in the first round of the playoffs or down the stretch.”
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