MANCHESTER CLAIMS ITS PLACE IN SHORE CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT LORE
By Mike Ready
WEST LONG BRANCH – Manchester Township captured its first Shore Conference Tournament title in program history with an impressive 58-42 win over perennial Shore Conference power Saint John Vianney, which suffered its third-straight loss in the SCT final.
The Hawks not only beat a team with 13 Shore Conference titles on its resume, they did it in convincing fashion in front of 4,150 spectators, many of whom had never seen this juggernaut Ocean County school in action, at the Ocean First Bank on the campus of Monmouth University.
Deadlocked at 33-33 with 44 seconds remaining in the third quarter, the third-seeded Hawks (25-2) reeled off 13 straight points to take a 46-33 lead with 5:13 remaining in the game.
They went on to outscore the top-seeded Lancers by a 23-9 margin in the fourth quarter and did it with two of their stars, 6-foot-3 sophomore forward Destiny Adams and 6-foot-0 senior guard Leilani Correa, hampered with foul trouble a good portion of the second half.
Correa still managed to score 10 of her 14 points in the second half, while Adams dropped nine of her game-high 19 points after intermission.
“Nights like tonight help me get my psych degree,” joked Manchester head coach Dave Beauchemin. “We made a subtle adjustment in our press (with Correa and Adams in foul trouble) bringing one more girl back to help us control the tempo in a different way. Settling in that (2-3) zone, fouls can dictate that before my choice can. But, we were playing so well in it there was no reason to change. With the press and being able to fall back on that, it gave us better rhythm.”
Senior forward Dakota Adams led the team with 10 second-half points and finished with 12 points, nine rebounds, three assists and three steals.
During the 2016-17 season as a sophomore, Adams was a starter on the team that beat top-seeded Middle Township on a buzzer-beater three-pointer handing Manchester its first-ever state title and then helped the Hawks repeat as NJSIAA South Jersey Group II champion last year.
“As a freshman, you want to come in and accomplish things,” said Adams. “But, I never really ever thought of something like this. During the No Boyz Allowed league in the fall, I started to have a sense. When you allow yourself to think about it and then do it, it’s an awesome feeling.”
The final piece to the puzzle fell into Manchester’s lap this fall when Correa, a University of West Virginia commit, transferred in from Rutgers Prep where she helped the Argonauts to a third straight Non-Public B title last season.
She’s helped Manchester win 25 games this season and a No. 4 ranking in the state while leading the team in scoring (16.3 points per game), rebounds (7.3 per game), steals (3.4 per game) and three-pointers (36), along with averaging 2.6 assists a game.
“It’s an amazing feeling to come in my senior year to a team that has never won this and being able to help them win a conference title,” said Correa, who added nine rebounds, two steals and an assist and block to her 14 points. “My teammates kept my head in the game, telling me, ‘we need you.’ We had to keep playing hard but smarter, make the right calls and right plays and getting rebounds and steals. Dakota and Destiny got big rebounds. We never gave in and played 100 percent the whole game.”
Saint John Vianney held a 18-16 lead with 2:50 left in the second quarter before the Hawks went on a 12-0 run spanning the last 2:12 of the half into the first minute of the third quarter to take a ten-point lead, 28-18, with 7:16 remaining in the third quarter.
Destiny Adams, who added a team-high 10 rebounds, two blocked shots and an assist to her team-high 19 points to earn tournament MVP, sank a three-pointer that ignited the run and her hard-earned three-point play completed it.
“It’s actually amazing because everyone was doubting us,” said Adams. “Everyone was saying Saint John Vianney was going to win because they’re a big private school that’s been here so many times. And we’re a small town school that nobody really knows. For us to win, it’s a blessing.”
However, the Hawks ten-point advantage was short lived as the Lancers followed up with an 15-5 run of their own to pull even, 33-33, with 44 seconds remaining in the third quarter.
Senior forward Brelynn Bellamy (eight points, five rebounds, five steals) and freshman guard Madison St. Rose (eight points, five rebounds) each had four points and senior forward Sajada Bonner (12 points, four rebounds) added a three-pointer during the Lancers’ run.
Fourteen seconds later, a Kemari Reynolds bucket put the Hawks up by two, 35-33, and they never looked back.
“We knew we had eight minutes to accomplish one of the goals that we set for us,” said Beauchemin. “It sparked us. To start that fourth quarter on a run and defensively, to not allow a counter-run was big time.”
The Hawks’ 2-3 zone defense forced 15 turnovers and they scored 26 points off fast breaks as a result of intense defensive effort.
“We’ve reached this peak and we’ve really turned things around as a program when we started digging in defensively,” said Beauchemin of his team’s elite defense. “Things started to become different for us when we started to play defense at a high level.”
Manchester’s average margin of victory in the tournament was a whopping 24.5 points and they became just the fourth public school since 1990 to win the SCT, joining Neptune, Colts Neck and Manasquan.
The Hawks are also the first Ocean County school to take home the Shore Conference Tournament title since 1984 when Southern Regional defeated Neptune in the championship game.
“It’s absolutely special,” said Beauchemin. “What a run we’ve been on and what a ride this community has been on with us in everything we’ve done. You can see all the support from all the community members here tonight. Expectations kind of built and the energy built around us so to be able to get here tonight and to take advantage of this opportunity we were given is something special.
“We kind of felt it was a special time to represent Ocean County. This tournament has been dominated by Monmouth County so there was a little bit of pride for the small schools in B South and it was a little something special for us to be able to represent as a smaller school and an Ocean County school,” he continued.
The Lancers shot a dismal 16-of-51 from the field, including 2-of-17 beyond the three-point arc, which led to a 38-31 edge in rebounding for Manchester, whose outlet passes then turned into fast-break points at the other end in the transition game.
“To keep that pace, the conditioning sessions are not fun,” said Beauchemin. “But they’re necessary to maintain that tempo. On a night like tonight, they understand why it’s done.”
The season is far from over for the Hawks, as they set their sights on the state tournament and try to win the program’s first-ever group title and a trip to the Tournament of Champions.
They’ll get a chance to dethrone Manasquan, who has defeated them the last two years in the first round of the NJSIAA Group II Tournament and are five-time defending champions.
“We went into this (SCT) knowing that we’d go far,” said Reynolds. “And when we finally did it, it made us feel so confident. Now we’re going for the whole thing because we know we can do it.”
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