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DOYLESTOWN – Courtney McManus played about eight minutes a game last year for Central Bucks East’s varsity.
These days, the junior guard is averaging closer to 28 minutes, and while McManus is still relatively inexperienced at the varsity level, she’s starting to look a whole lot like a seasoned veteran.
Consider only the stretch run of Saturday afternoon’s non-league showdown against Council Rock South.Midway through the final quarter, Rock South trimmed a once 13-point East lead to two after a bucket by Chelsea Allen, and the Golden Hawk fans were making some noise.
For all of about 16 seconds.
That’s all it took for the Patriots to get the ball up the court and find McManus for a trey that put the Patriots back on top by five.
“We always stayed patient,” McManus said. “We always looked for the open shot instead of letting them take us out of our game.”
Later in the quarter, the Golden Hawks pulled to within four, and McManus immediately answered with a bucket at the other end.
A putback by Allen cut the lead to four yet again, and this time it was McManus burying both ends of a one-and one to give the Patriots a six-point edge. That scenario was duplicated in the final minute of the game with the junior guard connecting on a pair of foul shots to stretch the Patriots lead to six.
When the dust had settled, McManus had 22 points to lead the Patriots to an important 57-53 win over the Golden Hawks.
It’s exactly the kind of performance East coach Tom Lonergan was hoping for from his junior guard when he laid out his expectations at a post-season meeting last March.
“We go through what we expect in the offseason and what we expect the next year,” the Patriots’ coach said. “Right there, we told her, ‘The ball’s yours. It’s up to you to do something with it when you come in to play for us in November.’
“To her credit and to Melissa Remmey’s credit – we told her she had to face up after playing with her back to the basket – they went out there and worked hard in the offseason and put themselves in positions to be able to do what they’re doing. Now as each game passes by, they’re gaining that valuable experience.”The Patriots picked up an important win to up their record to 7-1 on the young season.
“This was huge,” McManus said. “We had to prove to everyone we could actually be here because everyone was always saying how we don’t have everyone back this year, so we’re not going to be good.
“Every day we’re just proving to people that we can actually do this. We definitely had to come together as a team, and this year we support each other out on the court.”
While the Patriots celebrated the big win, the Golden Hawks were left to deal with their second loss in less than 24 hours – they fell to Abington in SOL play on Friday night.
“The first thing is we’re going to stay together as a team,” senior Lea Britton said. “We’re a tight unit. We look out for each other.
“We’re going to take these two losses to heart, but we’re going to come out stronger next week, better than ever. We know we’re better than this.”
Britton certainly did her part to keep the Golden Hawks in the game, scoring nine of her team-high 15 points in the fourth quarter.
“She’s all heart,” Rock South coach Monica Young said of Britton. “She makes up for her (lack of size) with her heart.”
Chelsea Allen added 13 points for the Golden Hawks while Kristina Pogue (12 points), Liz Martin (11 points) and Melissa Remmey (10 points) also finished the game in double figures for the Patriots. Martin also pulled down 11 rebounds while Remmey had six and Sarah Martin and Pogue, five each.“We’re very happy where we’re at, but we know we have to keep working harder, and this team should be a lot better in February because of gaining this experience,” Lonergan said. “We knew this game would be a good test to see exactly where we’re at.”
The Golden Hawks jumped out to a quick 6-0 lead and still held an 11-10 lead at the end of one quarter.
“That’s what we just talked about – this is a pattern of ours that we have to shake,” Lonergan said. “We can’t recall the last game we jumped out in front. We seem to always put ourselves behind a couple of baskets, and then we start playing.
“It’s something we have to work on and get better at. It took us a while to get something generated on offense, but credit our defense. Our defense kept them off balance the first half and gave us a chance for our offense to get untracked.”
While the Panthers had a slow start, scoring just two points in four minutes to open the game, they closed out the half with 27 points in the final 12 minutes to go into the intermission with a 29-19 lead.
“It pretty tough, especially being down by 10 at halftime both last night and today,” Britton said. “You can’t let that happen.
“We were close – we were within two, and then we dug ourselves a hole again.”
“They never gave up,” Young said. “They came back in both games, but we can’t dig ourselves a hole.”
The Patriots led 32-19 after McManus buried a trey to open the third quarter, but the Golden Hawks came back to trim that lead to six only to watch East open up a 44-32 lead after a bucket by Remmey.
Britton answered with a basket for the Golden Hawks to make it a 44-34 game heading into the final quarter.
The Hawks didn’t go down quietly, and a basket by Britton at the 4:16 mark made it a 45-41 game. A pair of Patriot misses set the stage for Emily Nowicke finding Allen cutting to the hole for an easy bucket, pulling the Hawks to within two and setting the stage for McManus’ late-game heroics.“We’re getting some needed experience,” Lonergan said. “We’re going up against teams that have more experience, but I think our group is gaining that experience quickly. Having enough composure to regroup and finish – Courtney made key foul shots to keep it a two-possession game.
“We rebounded the ball, which we didn’t do the first six minutes of the fourth quarter but we finished rebounding the glass, and more important than anything, we took care of the ball. When they came at us, we didn’t panic, we didn’t throw the ball around. We were able to handle the pressure. That’s more valuable than anything we can do at practice.”
As a result of their back-to-back losses, the Golden Hawks saw their record drop to 7-3.
“They’ll be fine,” Young said. “They’re off tomorrow, and I told them to come back fresh on Monday. We have two league games and a tough game against Souderton on Wednesday.
“I think we’ll be able to bounce back.”
“I think we have a new sense of urgency now,” Britton said. “I’m glad it’s the end of the week, and we can start a fresh week on Monday.
“As a senior, I’m going to start setting the tone, getting the girls to work harder because this is it. This is my last year. I won’t play basketball in college, and I want to leave everything out there on the floor and no regrets.”
CENTRAL BUCKS EAST 57, COUNCIL ROCK SOUTH 53
Council Rock South (53) – Lea Britton 7 0-0 15; Jackie Weber 1 0-0 3; Emily Nowicke 3 0-0 7; Chelsea Allen 6 1-4 13; Alexis Hoffstaeder 2 0-0 6; Alex Wheatley 4 1-2 9; Taylor Hunt 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 23 2-6 53.
Central Bucks East (57) – Melissa Remmey 4 2-2 10; Kristina Pogue 5 2-5 12; Sarah Martin 1 0-0 2; Liz Martin 4 3-4 11; Jenna SanFilippo 0 0-0 0; Courtney McManus 6 6-6 22. TOTALS 20 13-17 57.
Council Rock South 11 8 13 21-53
Central Bucks East 10 19 13 15-57
3-point goals: CR South – Hoffstaeder 2, Britton, Weber, Nowicke. CB East – McManus 4.
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