Manchester Central boys basketball rallies to beat Merrimack in Queen City Invitational finale

MANCHESTER – Doc Wheeler knows his Manchester Central High School boys basketball team can’t continue to do what it did in the Queen City Invitational Tournament.

For the second time in the three-day tournament, the Little Green fell behind by double digits in the first half, but rallied to victory in the second, this time overcoming a 16-point deficit to beat Merrimack 60-52 to win its 25th QCIT championship.

Joey Martin finished with a game-high 24 points, 18 of which came in the second half, and was named the tournament most valuable player. Jaylen Leroy and Ayei Akot each had 12 points for the Little Green, who took their first lead with 6:22 left in the fourth quarter and outscored Merrimack 41-22 in the second half.

The rally came two days after the Little Green trailed Manchester Memorial by 18 in the first half before winning on a buzzer beater. While Central and its coach savored the tournament victory, Wheeler knows it won’t hold up all season.

“That can’t go on for much longer,” Wheeler said. “I would have liked to have seen a whole heck of a lot more vocal leadership in the first half. It seems like when stuff doesn’t go our way, we don’t have that kid with the fire to pump up his teammates and talk about the stuff we need to correct on the court. It seems like we’ve got to wait until timeouts or halftime to really clean things up.”

Austin Franzen led Merrimack with 12 points, including a couple of jumpers in the second half that either helped keep the Tomahawks ahead, or kept the game close. Franzen received the tournament’s sportsmanship award, while teammates Dylan Richardson and Andrew Wojciak had 10 points apiece.

Wojciak helped shut down Martin in the first half, holding the Central senior to just six points, and the Tomahawks controlled the pace for the first 16 minutes, going up 26-10 in the second quarter.

“I thought we played outstanding in the first half,” Merrimack coach Tim Goodridge said. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to play much better defense, or shoot the ball better. Those kids gave everything they had.

“If they would have been able to withstand Central’s pressure, we probably would have won, but that was youth and inexperience. I said in the locker room, if we continue to improve every day, we can withstand that pressure and take advantage of it, do all the things we need to do to get better, we’ll be OK.”

The Tomahawks were OK at the start, as the Little Green missed their first three shots from the field and Merrimack grabbed each rebound. A Richardson layup with 3:04 left in the quarter made it a 14-2 lead for Merrimack and the Tomahawks weren’t done.

Wojciak and Zak Kerr each hit a pair of 3-pointers in the first quarter for Merrimack, and after Central cut the lead to 10, the Tomahawks went on a 9-3 run to lead by 16 points with 3:45 left until halftime.

“At the start of the game, Merrimack did a great job of getting us to play at their pace,” Wheeler said. “They won the battles, they were making better decisions, they were tougher with the ball. They played smarter than we were.”

Central started closing the gap before halftime, going on a 9-4 run to cut Merrimack’s lead to 30-19 at the break. The Little Green then opened the third quarter with a 12-4 run to pull within three.

Merrimack was able to hold on to the lead for the rest of the quarter, going up by as many as on a 3-pointer by Ian Cummings. But a bad turnovers late in the quarter led to an easy layup by Martin to cut the Tomahawks’ lead to 42-39.

Martin scored 10 of Central’s 12 final points of the third, and had seven straight points in the fourth quarter.

“The difference is Joey Martin,” Goodridge said. “The kid made some incredible shots and he’s an outstanding player. I thought we did a really good job on him in the first half. Andrew Wojciak did a really good job on (Martin). We knew it was coming and he did, so what are you going to do? It’s a tribute to (Martin).”

Three Merrimack turnovers early in the fourth helped Central go on a 10-2 run that put the Little Green up 49-44. The Tomahawks cut the lead to three, 54-51, on a three-point play from Ian Roberts with 2:33 to play, but Central ended the game on a 6-1 run.

“We pressured them a little bit better,” Wheeler said. “We were able to increase the pace of the game, and I think that favors us. We’ve got a lot of work to do. We have a whole different team than we did a year ago. Even the guys we got back are in different roles. It’s a real learning process. This tournament teaches us what we’re weak at and what we need work at.”