In their first home win of 2019, the Manhattan High Varsity basketball team (7-7) defeated the Topeka West Chargers (3-8), 57-47 after being down by four at the half in a key Centennial League win.

“It’s a huge confidence builder to win in front of our home crowd now since we are going into back to back away games,” senior Jonah Artis said. “It really sets us up to have a good league record at the end of league play.”

The Indians move to 4-4 in league play, which places them sixth out of nine teams.

“I was really proud of our second half,” head coach Benji George said. “Especially the defensive effort. [Topeka West] were trying to create chaos and trap and I thought we were very poised with the basketball. I feel like our turnover numbers were at a pretty good number. It starts with Owen [Braxmeyer], the point guard. I thought he did a great job.”

The Indians had ups and downs in the first half. They fell behind 2-9 within five minutes but turned it around and went on a 7-0 run to tie it at the end of the quarter. In the second quarter the lead changed between the two teams, but Topeka West would pull ahead before the half 25-21.

In the second half, it was all MHS. The Indians outscored the Chargers in the second half 36-22 behind Braxmeyer’s 13 points, 11 coming in the second half, and secured the win 57-47. The Tribe shot 45 percent from the field while shooting 75 percent from the free throw line.

“The last two days, we had two good practices,” George said. “We just practiced chaos. ‘It’s going to be a 2-2-1 and then a 1-3-1 and then a man and trap’. If you expect high school kids to try to figure out all that it’s hard so we just told them ‘get three out, get good spacing’, the second half we did a lot better job of that.”

The MHS Varsity Basketball team (7-7) will travel to Topeka this Friday to face off with the Seaman Vikings (7-4). Earlier this season, the Indians defeated the Vikings on home court in overtime 50-49 in a thriller of a game.