RallyNorth.net

Thu, Feb 14, 2008 06:30 PM @ Manchester Essex

Team	1	2	3	4	Final
Rockport	17	18	11	11	57
Manchester Essex	15	20	15	21	71

Nally sets career-high on senior night

Friday, February, 15 By John Shimer
Staff writer

Senior night is always special for any athlete. Manchester Essex boys basketball star Marty Nally made sure his would be especially unique as he pumped in a career-high 41 points. It was an incredible individual performance that people will remember forever as his Hornets held off visiting Rockport 71-57 in both team's season-finale.

"Marty was on fire, he's a real good streak-shooter," said Manchester Essex head coach Bill Cahill about his senior shooting guard. "You got to give credit to (senior point guard) James Settipane too, he was passing him the ball, he got the assists. He set him up. They had to respect both of them so one will be open."

Afterwards, Rockport head coach Tim St. Laurent couldn't fault his team for lack of effort while also saluting Nally's unbelievable game. "It's been the same thing all year, we're looking to play 32 minutes, all four quarters. They made a little run in the third and kept it going in the fourth, Nally was the key. We targeted him on defense and he still went out and lit it up."

The Hornets (7-13, 3-10) were fatigued from playing at Georgetown the night before (a 59-54 loss) but the fact that Manchester Essex had seven seniors probably helped them as they wanted to send the upperclassmen out with a win. Other than Settipane (6 points, 6 assists, 6 steals) and Nally (8 rebounds), other Hornet seniors included forward Ben Katzenstein, guard Joe Roy, forward Ian Graham (2 points, 5 rebounds), center Andrew Willwerth (4 points, 8 rebounds, 6 blocks) and forward Sam Cohen (2 points, 3 rebounds).

"I'm proud of the kids," stated Cahill. "They all contributed tonight. It was an up and down season, if we didn't have the injuries we weren't that bad."

The Hornets opened the game on a 9-2 run but Rockport closed the run and gun quarter with a 15-6 spurt to take the 17-15 lead. Vikings (3-15, 0-13) sophomore forward Josh Altman (9 points, 7 rebounds) had six in the first quarter while Nally scored nine. Altman capped off his strong quarter by nailing a jumper off a nice feed from junior forward Christopher Fritz-Grace (9 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals) before the buzzer sounded.

Neither defense could make any stops in the second as Manchester Essex had 20 and Rockport notched 18 points to make it 35 all going into halftime. Vikings junior forward David Campbell (14 points, 5 rebounds) had six in the frame while Nally added nine more. Rockport junior forward Michael Akers (team-high 16 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists) made plays on both ends, scoring eight points in the first half and also taking a charge on Settipane in the second quarter.

The second half which has been the Achilles heel of Rockport all season, flared up one last time. The Vikings scored 11 in the third and 11 in the fourth while Manchester Essex scored 15 in the third and closed the season out with 21 in the fourth.

Hornets junior guard Kyle Donovan (6 points, 2 assists) made the shot of the game as he canned a 3-pointer with eight seconds left in the third, putting his team up 50-46. From there, Nally did the rest as he scored 15 in the final frame of his high school career.

If there's such thing as a quiet 41-point night in high school basketball, Nally accomplished it. All his shots came in the context of the offense, nothing was forced. He only made one 3-pointer and he connected on all six of his free throws. Nally's basketball career isn't over though as he plans to play at Plymouth State University next fall.

Losing only senior guard Cory Emerson next year, Rockport hopes to build off of this season. "There wasn't a moment of practice or game where we just gave up," St. Laurent noted, "hopefully we can build off it and get better in the future. If you look at our box scores, they don't describe our team. They continued to grow and make progress."

On the other side, Cahill was happy to see his team end the season on such a high note. "I'm glad for the seniors to go out like this. We picked up the intensity on defense in the second half, playing man to man, we put a little pressure on them which led to some easy hoops. We've got some good kids coming back: Kyle, Zeke Gillette, Pat Orlando, Joe Mussachia, Brian Ciccone and a real good freshman group coming up. We'll be alright."