Boys Basketball – Lakewood Routs Manchester in Showdown of B South Unbeatens

LAKEWOOD – When Lakewood junior Amir Tyler watched his second three-point attempt of the game rattle around the rim, bounce off the backboard and fall through the cylinder during the first quarter of Tuesday’s Shore Conference Class B South division showdown against fellow first-place team Manchester, he felt like it would be his night.

As a team, however, the Piners – No. 6 in the latest Shore Sports Network Top 10 – suspected it was going to be their night before they even tore off their warm-ups.

Tyler torched Manchester for a career-high 29 points to go with seven rebounds and the Piners routed the Hawks, 76-43, to grab hold of sole possession of first place in Class B South after both teams entered the night unbeaten within the division.

“I thought coming in, we could do what we did tonight. I really did,” Lakewood coach Randy Holmes said. “We did a good job of scouting. They weren’t really aggressive in their man-to-man and we took advantage of the openings.

“We do a good job as a team and as a coaching staff of keeping the focus every game. This was sort of like a rivalry game and our guys treated it like that. I don’t know if they (Manchester) were ready. Our guys were ready.”

Lakewood stormed out to a 15-1 lead in the first quarter and Manchester never got closer than nine points the rest of the way. The Piners smothered the Hawks with a 32-minute half-court man-to-man defense that limited Manchester to 15-for-52 (28.9 percent) shooting and forced 15 turnovers.

“We just got in their jersey,” Tyler said. “We got in man-to-man, everybody switched when they had to, we got back in transition, moved the ball around. It started with getting in their jersey, and they couldn’t do anything.”

Manchester fought to get the score to 26-14 early in the second quarter before the Piners hit the Hawks with a 15-2 run to close the half and made it 18-2 on a banked three by Tyler on the first possession of the second half that gave Lakewood a 44-16 lead. After runs of 15-1 and 18-2 helped build the lead, the Piners later closed the game on a 19-5 run.

Tyler shot 11-for-19 from the floor and 3-for-6 from three-point range to lead Lakewood’s 27-for-57 (47.4 percent) shooting night. Junior Tyreek Grayson added 17 points – 15 in the first half – as well as six assists and three steals for Lakewood. Leading scorer Ryan Lawrence went scoreless during Lakewood’s 20-10 first-quarter run, but still finished with 15 points.

“I think Amir is finally starting to knock off the last of the football rust,” Holmes said, referring to Tyler’s transition from a standout football player to leader on the basketball court. “That’s a tough adjustment to make and you need time to get healthy and get your legs fresh again, and I think he’s starting to show that energy.”

“We have so many weapons and we’re not satisfied,” Grayson said. “We all work hard every day in practice to try to get better and when the game comes, we’re hard to guard.”

Manchester is now winless in its last 10 games against Lakewood after beating the Piners on opening night of the 2009-10 season. The two B South rivals have typically played to open the season in recent years, but drew each other last in the first cycle trough the B South division, allowing each to open the division schedule 6-0.

“We always have the bulls-eye on our back and with winning the division, states and Shore Conference over the years, the bulls-eye just gets bigger,” Tyler said. “We came out today and we wanted to be the hunters. We’re used to everybody hunting us, but this was for first place in the division, and we wanted to go out and take the game to them.”

“They’ve had a lot of success over the years and I guess we’re just the best team in our division to match them,” Holmes said of the match-up with Manchester. “We have the athletes to match-up with theirs and our guys are tough, both mentally and physically.”

Since losing its first game of the season on Jan. 10 to Neptune, Lakewood is 3-0 with an average margin of victory of 34.3 points against Jackson Liberty, Point Pleasant Boro and now Manchester. Lakewood dominated the glass against Neptune, but fell into an early 24-6 hole and missed 15 lay-ups, according to Holmes’ count. The Piners still rallied to challenge the Scarlet Fliers before falling, 50-44.

“Neptune came out ready to play and we didn’t,” Tyler said. “Today, we came out hungry. Our coaches have been telling us how important this game is, and we’ve been putting the work in to make sure we were ready to play our game.”

“We shot ourselves in the foot against Neptune and we lost,” Holmes said. “We just went back to practice and tried to get better: we worked on lay-ups and paint shots for a whole practice. We got knocked down, we learned our lesson, and we got better because of it.”

Box Score

Lakewood 76, Manchester 43

Manchester (43): Nakim Stokes 0 0-0 0, Shavar Reynolds 5 6-10 17, Israel Almestica 5 0-0 10, Robert Planter 1 0-0 2, Jordan Torney 2 5-8 9, L.J. Robinson 0 1-2 1, Alex Lunn 0 0-0 0, Dapo Samoye 1 0-0 2, Gavin Pabst 0 0-0 0, Khan Jenkins 0 0-2 0, Jerry Blackburn 1 0-0 2. Totals: 15 12-22 43

Three-pointers: Reynolds

Lakewood (76): Tyreek Grayson 7 1-2 17, Ryan Lawrence 5 5-5 15, Chapelle Cook 2 1-2 5, Sean Barksdale 1 2-2 5, Amir Tyler 11 4-8 29, Ryszon Barnes 0 0-0 0, Datrell Reed 0 0-0 0, Victor Figueroa 0 2-2 2, Clayon Rowe 1 0-0 2, Aidi Palmer 0 1-2 0, Zyare Jones 0 0-0 0, Jyare Jones 0 0-0 0. Totals: 27 16-23 76

Three-pointers: Grayson 2, Barksdale, Tyler 3