by Seneca Contomanolis
DigitalSports Richmond
Manchester is starting to serve notice that they too can be a player in the powerful Dominion District.
A week after knocking off then-ranked No. 3 Monacan, the Lancers defeated No. 8 Midlothian 39-37 on Tuesday night.
“That’s two big wins,” Manchester coach Jerry Gibbs said. “In the first half of the season we played almost every team in the top 10 accept Atlee. We are inexperienced but we are 16 games into the season now so we can’t use that as an excuse anymore.”
Gibbbs wasn’t joking either as the Lancers have already played eight teams that are currently ranked in the DigitalSports Top 10.
Porche Bentley has been huge all season for Manchester, especially in the past two wins. She scored a game-high 24 and had 15 rebounds against the Trojans to follow up a game-winning shot and 21 points against the Chiefs.
“Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do to get the win,” Bentley said. “You have to takeover sometimes if you have to takeover…don’t be selfish with it but if you feel like you can make the shot then like coach always says, ‘a player makes plays.'”
Bentley made a number of plays early as she scored all eight Manchester first quarter points. The Lancers (7-4 Dominion, 8-8) still trailed after the first 11-8 with Brittany Harris scoring five points for Midlothian (6-5, 10-7) in the opening period.
After the Lancers evened the score three times in the second quarter, they finally took their first lead of the game when Dre’deir Roberts nailed a 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer to put Manchester up two at the break. The Trojans only scored seven points in the period.
“We started out poorly,” Midlothian coach Doug Garrett said. “We should have been way ahead but we didn’t do many of the little things well.”
Midlothian’s Rachel Mathews (19 points) became more aggressive on offense in the third quarter, scoring nine points but the tough Lancer man-to-man defense didn’t allow Trojan guards Brittany Harris or Jermile Batten to get going on offense.
With the game knotted at 30 entering the fourth, Bentley started to make plays again.
The 5-9 junior scored eight straight to begin the period as the Trojans had no answer inside. Gibbs employed the strategy of taking the air out of the ball by running a motion offense around the perimeter and having his team wait for the right time to attack the basket.
The strategy greatly limited Midlothian’s chances on offense and when they did have the ball the Lancer defense kicked it up another notch. They did not allow Midlothian to get their first points of the quarter until Brooke Leonard hit a 3-pointer with 1:26 remaining to make the deficit five.
An out-of-bounds five second violation gave the ball back to the Trojans and Mathews cut the lead to three but Jessica Clanton (eight points) secured the victory for Manchester with a free throw with 22.6 seconds left to create the final difference.
“I am proud of the defense,” Gibbs said. “We played man-to-man the full game. That is not what Manchester does.”
The Lancers held Harris to only seven points, as she didn’t score it the second half, and Batten to only four.
Manchester will now play another top 10 team on Wednesday, No. 9 Deep Run, while Midlothian has a date with No. 3 Cosby on Thursday.
“They are usually really good at bouncing back,” Garrett said of his team. “We will be ready to play Thursday.”
Midlothian 11 7 12 7 – 37
Manchester 8 12 10 9 – 39
Midlothian (6-5 Dominion, 10-7): Leonard 3, Thompson 0, Batten 4, Edmunds 4, Klement 0, Harris 7, Nunn 0, Mathews 19. Totals: 12 4-6 37. 3-point goals: Harris, Batten, Leonard.
Manchester (7-4, 8-8): Bentley 24, Clanton 8, Hendricks 0, Hines 2, Roberts 3, Stargardt 2. Totals: 15 6-7 39. 3-point goals: Roberts.
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