So far, the toughest opponent that the Manchester Essex boys basketball team has faced is winter itself.
When they have been rested and healthy the Hornets have been unbeatable this season, securing four Cape Ann League Baker Division wins over Rockport, Ipswich, Hamilton-Wenham, Amesbury and Pentucket since the start of the winter season. However, a road loss to Lynn Tech at the end of December and a Jan. 9 loss to North Reading due to illness and fatigue related to some of the perils traditionally associated with this time of year.
Illness kept the Hornets from trotting out their complete roster in the recent loss to North Reading and resulted in Manchester Essex needing to reschedule its circle-the-calendar Jan. 13 game against Georgetown to next week. Both Hornets teams are an identical 5-1 in the CAL Baker, so the winner would walk away with both a victory and the early division lead.
The big one is Georgetown both 5-1 in league
“We were supposed to see Georgetown [on Jan. 13], but we have three guys out with the flu,” explains ME boys basketball coach Tim St. Laurent. “In the interest of preserving everyone’s health, we moved that to next week.”
With the short break (the Hornets were slated to play Hamilton-Wenham for a second time this season on Jan. 15, and then Newburyport the day before Georgetown), the team will look to get healthy and work on its overall conditioning, the concern to come out of the loss to Lynn Tech.
“The biggest thing in the first loss, it showed that we need to be more committed in practice to conditioning,” says St. Laurent. “A lot of times you spend a lot of time on X’s and O’s and drills to get ready for the first couple of games, but not on conditioning. Since that loss, we’ve really ramped it up.”
These early-season goals aside, there are a lot of high school basketball programs that would love to be in the situation that Manchester Essex finds itself in. This is a team with tournament experience, depth and a host of big bodies that can tower over other rosters. The conditioning and health concerns can both be resolved in time. You can’t teach tall, which has certainly helped the Hornets get to 5-2 out of the gate.
Exhibit A in this argument is Alex Ste. Marie, the do-everything big man who leads the team in scoring with 25.5 points per game.
“He goes inside and out, and has been really productive offensively,” explains St. Laurent.
Senior Joe Glass is another big who has excelled on defense so far.
“He’s really been a staple on defense for us,” says St. Laurent. “His footwork has definitely been great. He’s had a nice senior jump.”
The rest of the lineup has been stellar. Three-year starter Jake Zschau has been solid on both ends of the court, scoring 17 and helping to keep Manchester Essex competitive in the loss to North Reading. Graham Lewis has kept the offense running smoothly from the point guard spot, Zach Hurd is the team’s defensive specialist and Swiss Army Knife and Jacob Zachareas was shooting the ball well and playing good defense before illness took him out of the game.
“I think the biggest piece is that we are playing good, team ball,” explains St. Laurent. “We are sharing the ball well, and we’ve been really productive offensively.”
Jason Brisbois covers all things sports for the Manchester Cricket. Contact him at jason@thecricket.com.
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