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Lady Squires falter, lose
By Chris Garner
NORTH MANCHESTER, Ind. — Manchester's girls officially opened
the 1999-2000 basketball season by wasting a 16-point third-quarter lead
and dropping a 64-63 decision to visiting Bluffton here Friday.
It was an aggressive defense that got the Lady Squires that big lead, and that
same over-aggressiveness may have cost them in the end. With a 61-54 lead
on Jessica Hicks' basket, Manchester saw three starters sit out the final two
minutes with five fouls and the Lady Tigers outscore the Lady Squires 10-2
from that point on.
"In the fourth quarter, we had all those fouls and we couldn't seem to
overcome that," coach Keri Nichols said. "We had to move a lot of people
around and this early in the season people aren't ready for that. You can't
expect them to be."
Fans at the game Friday who also saw Bluffton beat Manchester in 1998's
Class 2A semistate finale at Logansport must have thought they were reliving
a bad nightmare.
In that contest, some good guard play by the Lady Squires built what
seemed to be an unbeatable lead, but sloppiness and foul shooting were their
undoing.
Last night, some strong play by sophomore point guard Heather Terflinger
and reserve senior Christy Markstahler — who played in that 1998 game —
rattled the Lady Tigers repeatedly on the press. Terflinger made
back-to-back steals that converted into layups, giving Manchester a 41-27
lead, and Markstahler later picked off an errant pass and converted it to
provide the 16-point cushion at 45-29.
But Bluffton stormed back to score the next eight points and cut the lead to
45-38 at the final break, and then got to within three before Terflinger
scored on a running layup midway through the last period for a 57-52 lead.
Still the Lady Tigers refused to fold and turned the tide against Manchester,
creating nine fourth-quarter turnovers by the Lady Squires.
Down the stretch, three free throws by Janette Robles, a basket by Abby
Mowery and more turnovers did in Manchester. Robles gave Bluffton one of
its only leads of the game on a free throw with 12 seconds to play, and the
seemingly taller-than-5-foot-10 Mowery led everybody with 24 points and
14 rebounds.
The Lady Squires still had a chance at winning with seven seconds left, but
their final shot was wide of the mark.
"Our effort was 100 percent," said a more cheerful than you might expect
Nichols. "All the mistakes we made are correctable. It wasn't because we
didn't hustle or didn't have the effort.
"These are hard ones to lose though. The question is, 'How are we going to
take it?' Are we going to put our heads down or are we going to say, 'OK,
let's fix what needs to be fixed' and move on?"
Despite shooting better than 53 percent from the floor — including 7-of-10
in the fourth period — Manchester let a 17-10 turnover advantage after
three slip away to an even 19-all at game's end. The Lady Tigers also shot
eight more times from the charity stripe and converted 45 percent of them to
only 33 percent for Manchester.
Hicks led the Lady Squires in both scoring and rebounding with 18 and 10
respectively, while Jennifer Jester scored 15 points on some solid 4-of-9
shooting from 3-point range and Terflinger added 14. Carrie White had six
rebounds and four points before fouling out.
Manchester also lost the junior varsity game 40-22 despite being tied 12-all
at the half. Miriel Speicher had six points.
The Lady Squires are at Concordia Tuesday.
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