Manhattan Indians girls basketball comes into this week’s three-day tournament sizzling. The Indians (9-2) are on a four-game win streak, in which they have taken down opponents by nine or more points in each outing.
“We’re playing good basketball,” head coach Scott Mall said. “I think our defense is improving all the time, and we’ve done a pretty good job of taking advantage of what we can offensively.”
In their most recent game, the visiting Indians triumphed over Blue Valley 54-45 on Jan. 23.
“We got off to a tough start,” Mall said. “We had some turnovers in the first quarter, and they just shot, I think [Blue Valley] made like five out of five threes in the first quarter…but we got back in it in the second and third quarters and did some good things. And then in the fourth quarter we were able to really shut down their offense a lot.”
The Indians beat Hayden 49-36 in their only home game of the month on Jan. 16.
“They had one really good player,” junior Bailey Busch said. “So our main plan was to just try and stop her as much as we could on defense.”
The Indians play in a three-day tournament in McPherson from Jan. 29-31. The Indians’ first opponent has already been determined: Shawnee Mission East.
“We played them a couple years ago,” Mall said. “They always have a quality team. Their record’s not good, but they have played really good competition over there in the Sunflower League. They’re a team that shoots the ball really well.”
If the Indians win their first match, they get into the winners bracket.
“There we would play the winner of Andover Central and McPherson,” Mall said. “If we lose, we play the loser of that game in the losers bracket. So there’s four teams on each side of the bracket.”
The Indians are the no. 2 seed in the tournament based on the record and the top seed on their side of the bracket. Mall points out the talent that lies on the other side.
“The other side of the bracket has two really top teams in the state, Shawnee Mission South, who has one loss, they’re ranked number one right now in 6A girls. And Olathe South, who doesn’t have a great record, but they’ve played some really tough Missouri competition,” Mall said.
Overall, Mall is happy with what the team has shown so far this season.
“We’ve had some players really step up, like Jorryn Hall has really stepped up this year,” Mall said. “She’s really played on a higher level than she has been, which is good to see. But we knew we had some girls that were really good at trapping, and so we put in some stuff that we maybe haven’t done in the past to take advantage of that.”
