Image by Caroline Truong

“We played a different zone this time,” Greene said. “We took care of the ball better, we gave up 80 points the first time we played Manor and only 60 [this time]. If you play better defense, you give yourself more of a chance to win.”

Men’s varsity basketball hosted the Manor Mustangs on Tuesday, Jan. 23. McNeil held a lead of about 10 points for the first three quarters. The Mustangs eventually caught up and the two teams fought for the lead throughout the fourth quarter. Tied up at 62-62, the Mustangs were fouled and able to earn two more points with free throws, putting the score at 62-64. With the ball back and just two and a half seconds left, junior Cole Szewczyk, attempted to score a three-pointer from half-court to win the game. However, the final score was 62-64 L.

This was not McNeil’s first matchup with Manor in the season. They also played at Manor on Dec. 15 which ended with a score of 60-84 L.

“We’ve played [Manor] once before,” Szewczyk said. “We knew they were gonna be tough, so we were gonna have to kind of give a little extra.”

Despite a difference of 14 points in the Dec. 15 game, McNeil was able to stay close enough to Manor in the Jan. 23 game to lose by only two points.

“I thought we definitely did much better than the previous games,” Szewczyk said. “We’ve been coming together as a team lately. I think if we just keep on improving like we’ve been doing the last couple of games, we can definitely step it up and win the next couple.”

After holding a lead for the majority of the game, the Mavericks were hesitant to give it up.

“I knew they were gonna be physical, like get a lot of rebounds and stuff but we just had to adjust to it,” sophomore Torrance Green said. “We gotta finish the game stronger like how we started. We just came out soft and they started getting the lead.”

Green is one of a few sophomores on varsity with a team of primarily seniors.

“It’s something new,” Green said. “We’ve just got a young team, it’s four of our first times on varsity so we just [have] to adjust to it. I think we played good but we [could’ve played] a little bit better on the defensive side.”

In the final moments of the game as it was tied 62-62, Manor scored two free throws to secure the win against McNeil.

“I won’t talk about Manor for the rest of the year, because we don’t play Manor again,” head basketball coach Brandon Greene said. “We needed to rebound better, so how do we rebound better against Vista Ridge? Because rebounding better against Manor doesn’t help us now.”