After a competitive first half, the boys’ basketball team pulled away from Bardstown to seal a 77-43 victory. The Crimsons outscored the Tigers 38-13 in the second half. They ended the game on a 30-6 run over the last 12 minutes in the game.

“Let’s not take anything away from Bardstown,” said Head Coach Mr. Jimmy Just (Math). “I think that we just wore them down a little bit. In the beginning of the game they were fresh, and they were ready to play. We did a nice job, it just took a little bit of time for us to figure things out.”

In the second half, the Crimsons quickly ramped up their defense.

“We came out and played better defense in the second half,” said Steven Gordon (11, #21). “Coach got on us in the locker room… so we just came out and played better defense and rebounded better.”

In the second half, Manual also switched to a 2-3 zone, which was intended to disrupt the flow of the Tiger offense and to stop Bardstown from penetrating to the hoop.

“The 2-3 had a big difference,” said Ty’Ron Horton (12, #24). “In the third quarter they were 2-11 from the field, and they were 2-12 in the fourth quarter.”

The stout defense led to easy offense for the Crimsons in the second half.

In the second and third quarters, Manual made its run. While Crimsons were able to pull away from the Tigers, Manual was able to do it with multiple players in foul trouble.

“The foul trouble issues does a couple things for us: it teaches us how to learn how to play with fouls; play smarter so we don’t pick up extra fouls, and it shows me whether these guys can actually play that way,” Just said. “It also gives other kids an opportunity to step on the floor, and know that we can’t drop off, we got to keep stepping up our game, and we did that tonight; our kids did a nice job of maintaining a high level of play.”

Despite the relatively easy win, Just hopes that the team starts faster in the future.

“We got to know that we have to come out ready to play, sustain drives, and we didn’t play great the first quarter but we kept battling,” Just said. “Then in the second quarter we started to do a better job of rebounding, and defensively we tried to change things up and play more zone to try to stop their penetration. It seemed to get them out of their flow of their offense.”

Manual (4-0, 1-0 district 25) will travel to Seneca on Friday night to play its first true road game of the year.