Flyers Basketball Runs Over Manhasset in 2012 Haggerty Opener

You want to win your own tournament. Really, what other reason is there to have it? Oh, sure you can invite a few of the better teams, get some court time in, test yourself, but what you really want is to be standing there at center court in the end, clinging to something gold-plated.

Manhasset spoiled Chaminade’s fun in the 2011 Haggerty Tournament final, refusing to play the fool’s role, beating the host Flyers by a trey over a pile of shooting mistakes.

Thursday night at the Activities and Athletic Center off of Saville Road, they were back to being the punching bag, being dealt a 63-27 blowout.

For at least one game, the Flyers seem to have put aside their second quarter jinx and going on an all-out domination spree against the Indians putting up 17 and 16 points in the first two frames to lead by 20 at half-time.

“Not bad, not bad,” Flyers head coach Bob Paul would say. “It was part of the message though, for the seniors, they haven’t won a Haggerty championship and they need to do that. If you can’t get up for a game like that then you don’t need to play the game.”

Guard Brian Ehrhardt got up to 12 points with Liam Murphy close behind at 10, scoring most of their points in the first half.

“We had great balanced scoring tonight and that’s what makes us good because we can’t key on one guy so if you can really spread the ball and share the ball and that’s what we preach, you’re very hard to beat,” Paul said.

Meanwhile the Manhasset offense was stymied continuously, even being triple-teamed at the top of the lane.

“We want to get a stop and we take pride in that,” Paul said. “I don’t care about the other end, I don’t care about how many baskets you made, all that kind of stuff, because if we play good defense, your offense can come off of that.”

The defense also included an exclamation in the form of a rejection at the net from guard Liam Murphy.

“He winds guys up, he does a good job,” Paul said.

In the other game, Floral Park managed to down Westbury scoring 80 points, including 16 shots from behind the arc.

“We have to really make sure that we guard the three-point line,” Paul said of Chaminade’s opponents in the final. “They’re going to press us, they’re going to want to run with us, so that’s good because we want to play that fast too. I think for us we really need to make sure that we, like we do every game, get the ball inside because we’re going to have a distinct size advantage.”

As if Thursday night’s match wasn’t fast enough?

“That was slow tonight,” laughed Paul. “See us in March; wait until March.”