Wozniak's foul shot saves day against Manchester

Jeremy Wozniak, a junior guard for Central Regional's boys basketball team, stepped up to the foul line. With two seconds left, he could seal a victory over Shore Conference B South favorite Manchester Regional by sinking both ends of a one-and-one.
Wozniak, one of two starters back from last season's team, swished both ends to complete a 45-42 victory. Manchester was short on a desperation heave from beyond half-court at the buzzer.
"This hasn't happened for me, but I didn't think much about it," said Wozniak, who finished with 10 points.  "The first one I wasn't completely sure about it. But it  went right through and so did the second."
Wozniak - who also got some key points in the final quarter amid a seesaw second half of lead changes - also grabbed eight rebounds and had six assists as the Golden Eagles improved to 4-5 overall and 3-2 in A South. The victory keeps them in the running in the B South race and for tournament berths. Manchester slipped to 7-2.
"By far this is our biggest win of the young season," coach Mike Clemente said.

His team won nine games last year. The boys came off three tough losses to Barnegat, Lacey and Brick Memorial before beating Manchester.

 "We weren't jelling and scoring a lot of points and we didn't score a lot here, either, but we made some big baskets, pressure jump shots," Clemente said.
That includes points from Wozniak, whom Clemente regards as a "true basketball player" who is consistent in different areas of the game.
"Yeah, 4-5 looks a lot different right now than 3-6,"  Wozniak said "We made our shots when we had to and we played good defense and they're good offensively. Hopefully we can go in the right direction with this win."
Joe Hardy matched his scoring average with 12 points against Manchester and also pulled down 10 rebounds. Damium More had what Clemente called "his best game at point guard" with five assists to go with his seven points and some clutch rebounds. More sank a big three-pointer late in the game.  Austin DeRose also dropped in a big three-pointer.
"We'll start getting more wins off this," said Clemente assuredly. "But we're still not scoring a lot of points. The big thing is there's improvement. The kids are responding but they have a way to go. They're young. There's only three seniors on the team."
One of them -- senior 6-foot, 3-inch center Steve Ulack -- is "very consistent" in his play and has done a strong job off the boards. Clemente feels junior small forward Casey Allender can help ease the team's frustrations with scoring.

"He's starting to help us," Clemente said.
"We played more a as team against Manchester," Wozniak said. "Our defense helped each other. "There have been times we do things individually and this proved as we can play any team in the Shore Conference. We need to stay together like this."
The team has a  challenging upcoming schedule with the next four games on the road, including an divisional game slated for Jan. 18 against A South team Southern Regional, a Friday match-up with Brick Township, followed by games against Pinelands Regional and A South squad Toms River East.