Sheltered from the snow, Memorial rains buckets on Central

MANCHESTER, NH –  A few inches of slushy wet snow couldn’t stop the Manchester Central High School boys basketball from making the roughly three-mile trek across the Queen City to compete against rival Memorial Friday night.

But the Little Green may have left wishing that it had.

Though Central came out fighting early, Memorial took the lead in the second quarter and never looked back, cruising to a 73-46 victory in front of a packed gymnasium as a heavy wet snow blanketed the Memorial parking lot.

With the game knotted at 11 following the first quarter, the two teams traded baskets to begin the second frame, but then Memorial sophomore Dylan Jolicoeur came into the game and hit two threes to spark a 25-12 run to closeout the first half.

That momentum continued into the third quarter where the Crusaders outscored the Little Green 29-9 to  carry a 33-point advantage into the fourth.

“We scored a lot of points tonight, and that third quarter was huge,” said Bryson. “Jack (Brooks) started hitting shots and we started breaking their zone and opening things up for other people.”

As they have for much of the season, Brooks and Christian Bilolo led the effort with 19 and 18 points respectively, while captains Joel Gomez produced 11 points and Bory Bory added nine.

Bryson, who challenged his team following a 71-61 loss at Goffstown a week earlier, said he was impressed with how the athletes responded, not only in the actual game, but in the days leading up to it.

“We just didn’t play Memorial basketball (against Goffstown) … so I wanted to slow down the train before it starts going off the rails and kind of go back to the basics of what we were doing the first two weeks,” he said. “You know, sometimes, even as a coach, you come in here and you kind of get lax with stuff, so I just kind of called them out and told them: ‘This is your season. I’ll take responsibility as your coach but it’s also on you guys to man up.'”

The Crusaders did just that, responding with three days of high-level, high-intensity practice, the momentum of which they carried into Friday night’s contest.

“I always say, you practice the way you want to play, and that’s exactly what they did this week, and it showed tonight,” said Bryson. “I’m happy we bounced back, but if you can’t get up for the Central game … you know, I’m just happy we got the win and we’ll see where how we do against BG on Tuesday.”

The Crusaders who improved to 6-5 with the victory, next travel to Nashua to face 6-6 Bishop Guertin at 6:30 Tuesday night.

Memorial sits at 10th in the Division-I standings, one spot in front of BG, and a game out of a top-8 position, which would secure at least one home playoff contest.

“We play a lot better here than we do on the road, which any team does, but this is kind of a special place for these kids to play,” said Bryson.

“After Feb. 25th, it’s a whole new season,” he said. “I don’t think anyone wants to see Memorial come the first round of the playoffs. We’re going to be dangerous. I have seven seniors on this team, so I know they’re going to fight right to the end.”

The Little Green fell to 2-10 and currently sits 20th out of 22 teams in the D-I standings, but are only two games out of a potential playoff spot. They host 5-5 Goffstown Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.