MANCHESTER— Over the last two weeks the Manchester Essex boys basketball team has run roughshod over Division 3 and even Division 2 opponents in the ultra tough Cape Ann League. So when fellow Division 4 school and perennial rival Georgetown visited Manchester Essex High School Friday night the Hornets were out to make a statement to the rest of the Division. And they did just that running the Royals up and down the floor en route to a 75-52 shellacking.
With the win, the Hornets sixth straight, the team moves to 11-1 on the year while Georgetown falls to 4-9.
"Georgetown is tough and well coached and they don't quit, but we are just playing great basketball right now," Hornets head coach Duane Sigsbury said. "We are rolling 11 deep right now and everybody is playing well. We made a few mistakes tonight but that happens, overall I was very happy with the way we played tonight."
The first quarter was a dog fight as the Royals did a decent job keeping Manchester Essex out of transition and got a few key buckets inside from Patrick Bjork finishing the quarter down just 15-11. But in the second quarter the Hornets picked up the aggression and essentially ran away with the game.
From the final 10 seconds of the first up until the first 1:40 of the second quarter, Manchester Essex turned a 13-11 lead into a 28-13 advantage. How did they expand the lead so quickly? By the team's trademark aggression on both the offensive and defensive ends. The Hornets started to kick their fast break into high gear and the Royals could not handle their speed and athleticism in the second frame. Sigsbury's squad also began creating turnovers leading to easy buckets to go along with stout one-on-one defense. While Georgetown worked hard on both ends of the floor taking good shots and playing tough defense, the Hornets were just too much for them.
"That was a pretty quick run we had," Sigsbury said. "We did a good job in transition and we got some easy baskets because of it. These kids understand team ball and that's special. They played as a team again tonight and the results were what we wanted them to be."
The standout for Manchester Essex was Chris Bishop. The senior captain scored the teams first six points and by the time the 15-2 run was complete he had 17 of the teams 28 points finishing with 30 and 10 rebounds despite the fact that he played sparingly in the second half. Bishop broke the game wide open with a three pointer early in the second followed by back-to-back steals in the back court that resulted in uncontested layups.
"Chris got us going tonight offensively but it was a total team effort," Sigsbury said. "Chris,(Sean) Nally, Max (Nesbit), Casey (Weld), and Joe (Burgess) all played great as did our bench."
In the second half Manchester Essex extended its lead with the same type of aggressive play and it was once again Bishop on the offensive end getting the team going with eight of the team's first 10 points of the quarter helping the Hornets extend the lead to as much as 25 points in the frame and 29 points at one point early in the fourth quarter.
In the final frame Sigsbury emptied his bench and still got strong results. The Hornets head coach praised the play of Petey Morton and Liam Aldrich, who both missed games due to an illness, Sean Gutierrez was also strong with seven rebounds off the bench.
Bjork powered the Royals with 14 points and 13 rebounds, Ben Warren chipped in 15 while Angel San Quintin had six on a pair of late three pointers. Sean Nally also scored in double figures for Manchester Essex with 13 points at the point guard position.
Manchester Essex 75 Georgetown 52
at Manchester Essex High School, Manchester
G: Ben Warren 7-1-15, Tyler Wade 3-1-9, Patrick Bjork 5-4-14, Matt Gott 1-0-2, Mike Bjork 2-0-4, Colby Ingraham 1-0-2, Angel San Quintin 2-0-6.
ME: Chris Bishop 11-6-30, Sean Nally 6-0-13, Casey Weld 3-0-6, Max Nesbit 3-0-9, Taylor Ketchum 1-0-2, Sean Gutierrez 1-0-2, Liam Aldrich 1-0-2, Joe Burgess 3-0-8, David Wright 1-1-3.
Halftime: ME 40-22
3-Pointers: G, Wade 2, San Quintin 2; ME, Bishop 3, Nally, Nesbit 3, Burgess 2.
Records: G, 4-9; ME, 11-1.
