Boys' Basketball Team Loses Two
11 Feb 2009

by Eric Christiansen
Northfield jumped out to a 15-3 lead over the Manchester Squires and never let the Squires in the game, cruising to a 51-30 win.
Northfield snapped a five game losing streak with the win, moving to 6-7 on the year. Manchester fell to 2-11.
“Even though we lost, I saw some good things out there,” Manchester coach Gary Goshert said. “Defensively, we were pretty good at times. We were getting some stops, but we were kind of spinning our wheels on offense.”
Austin Flack did his best to get the Squires going offensively in the first half. scoring six points, and getting to the line, despite missing both free throws.
Meanwhile, Corbin Dawes was having his way with the Squires, scoring 13 of his 18 points in the first half, outscoring the Squires 13-11 in the first two quarters.
The Norse got after it on the defensive end in the third quarter, not allowing the Squires a basket, and only giving up five points on free throws.
Manchester outscored the Norse 14-10 in the fourth quarter, but it wasn’t enough to get any closer than 18 points.
“We left some starters in the fourth because we are trying to teach them in certain situations,” Northfield coach Moe Smedley said. “We gave up six or eight points on their second efforts, and we can’t let teams do that. We have to play it like we’re tied, regardless of what the score is.”
“We worked our fannies off out there,” Goshert said of his team. “The boys are recognizing some of the things they need to work on, and that is huge. W e took care of some things in the fourth quarter, and that got us going a bit. They are trying really hard.”
Flack led the Squires with 11 points, while Scott Baker had six. Austin Crockett had three points, and Aric Howard, Coltin Jenks, Aaron Olinger, Ryan Binkley, and Kyle Lahman all had two points.
For Northfield, Kody Case had 15 points to go with the 18 from Dawes.
Loss To Peru
For five minutes, the Squires played right with the Class 3A eighth ranked Peru Tigers. After that, it was all Peru in a 73-43 Tiger win.
Aaron Olinger tied things up at 3-3 with a three pointer early in the game, and the Squires trailed just 10-5 with 3:20 left in the first quarter.
Peru then made a statement, outscoring the Squires 32-6 the rest of the half, taking a 42-12 halftime lead.
The Squires never got closer than 24 points in the second half.
“Peru is obviously a very good team,” Goshert said. “We did some good things, but Peru has a lot of horses, and we had a hard time slowing them down.
“We gave up way too many offensive rebounds,” he continued. “We just have to learn to recognize certain situations and figure out what needs to happen in those situations.”
Crockett led the Squires with eight points, Jenks had six, Olinger had five, Baker and Devan Knecht had four, Lahman had three, and Howard, Flack, and Binkley all had two points.
The Squires will host Southwood on Wednesday, and will be at Whitko on Thursday.