Hawks Soar to New Heights in 2011

When Manchester High School senior Nate Nickens blocked a lay-up attempt by Kingsway’s Rondell Gilmore – one of the best players in South Jersey – with less than 30 seconds left in the NJSIAA South Jersey Group III final against the top-seeded Dragons on Tuesday, Hawks coach Ryan Ramsay could not help but think one thing.

“Holy (cow),” Ramsay remembered thinking. “We’re going to win a state championship.”

It was not to be, however, as Nickens missed a free throw following the block and a controversial foul allowed Kyler Grigsby to hit the two game-winning free throws with 18 seconds to play, giving Kingsway its third straight sectional championship and leaving Manchester still searching for its first.

Although the Hawks fell short this time, this year’s squad advanced farther than any in program history. The deepest any other Manchester team had advanced was in 2004, when all-time leading scorer Jaron Griffin led his team to the South Jersey Group II semifinals in his junior year before losing to Woodrow Wilson of Camden.

Nickens was fouled after rebounding the blocked shot, but missed the front end of a one-and-one.   On the scramble for the ball following the missed free throw, Grigsby and Hawks sophomore Mason Jones went to the floor to grab the ball and the official whistled Jones for a loose-ball foul. The call gave Grigsby a one-and-one of his own and he took advantage by sinking both shots to give Kingsway a 49-48 lead with 18 seconds left.

“I’ve watched the tape about six times and I still can’t find anything that would be a foul in that situation,” Ramsay said in the aftermath several days later. “I would have just thought there would be a jump ball there. Manchester had the possession arrow and they would have had the ball with a chance to win it or lose it.

“But it is what it is. The referees know how to call the game and they called what they saw. And credit goes to Kingsway. They fought their way back, Gilmore got hot and the kid stepped up and hit two big free throws with the game on the line. There’s a reason they’ve won two sectional titles in a row, but I thought we deserved it just as much.”

Senior DeJuan Barlow got one final look for Manchester, but his jumper was off the mark and time ran out on Manchester’s upset bid.

Manchester led by as many as 12 points, a lead it established early in the third quarter, but Gilmore caught fire down the stretch, hitting five of his six 3-pointers in the final 11 minutes. With his team trailing by six points, Gilmore banked in a 30-foot three as time expired in the third quarter, cutting the Manchester lead in half heading into the final eight minutes.

“In my six years here, Gilmore is probably the best player we’ve played against,” Ramsay said. “The kid’s a stud.”

The missed free throw notwithstanding, Nickens finished his career with his usual stellar performance, highlighted by a team-high 16 points and a block that momentarily appeared to clinch the championship.

“Nate was outstanding again for us,” Ramsay said. “I can’t tell you how many college coaches came to me after the game asking about him. He was that good.”

The deep run through the South Jersey III bracket – which included wins over Timber Creek, Pemberton and Shore Conference Class B South division rival Lacey – came on the heels of a four-game losing streak that appeared to drop Manchester into a funk out of which it would not shake. The Hawks lost to Central for a second time, followed by a loss to Monsignor Donovan and back-to-back losses to Manalapan. The second of those losses was a humbling 58-38 defeat in the first round of the Shore Conference Tournament.

“The seniors called a team meeting and they just got the younger guys together and decided they wanted to play better,” Ramsay said. “This tournament was going to be how guys like Nickens, DeJuan Barlow, Monwell Brown – guys who have played all four years here – this was going to be how they are remembered. That urgency set in and they pushed themselves in practice leading up to the tournament and played their best basketball of the season.”

Behind its seniors, Manchester recovered to make a deep playoff run that buried the bad memories of the past two weeks, as well as a 67-39 loss at home to Moorestown in last year’s South Jersey III first round.

“I’m proud of the way our seniors responded,” Ramsay said. “I told our guys, if they played this way all year, we wouldn’t have lost a game. I really believe that.”

The postseason effort, along with a Shore Conference Class B South co-championship, continued the program’s steady climb toward the top tier of the league.

Jones will lead a group of returnees that will operate under a different set of expectations next season.

“The younger guys were as hurt as the seniors were, and that’s a good thing,” Ramsay said. “They were already coming to me saying, ‘Coach, don’t worry. We’ll be back.’ ”