Manning helps St. Mary’s boys hoop defeat Williams

LYNN – A thing of beauty it certainly was not at times on Monday at Conigliaro Gymnasium. Yet when all the points were added up, the St. Mary’s boys had their sixth win of the season.Matt Manning’s 13 points gave the Spartans a lift when it was needed and helped the hosts overcome a nearly superhuman effort from Williams’ Kevin Louine, who ripped off 23 points, in a 61-56 St. Mary’s win.”I wasn’t pleased at all with many facets of our game,” St. Mary’s coach Kevin Moran said. “Matt came in and showed a little bit of energy for us.”The Spartans (6-2) were in front nearly the whole way but it was a less than perfect effort at times. St. Mary’s jumped out to a quick 7-2 lead in the first quarter before the Bishops fought back to tie the game at 13-13 by the end of the period.It was still a three-point game early in the second when Devin Thompson hit the second of his three long range bombs on the night to put the Spartans up 22-16 and start a critical half-ending run.Elvin Souffrant and Louine, who combined for 39 of Williams’ 56 points, cut the lead back to a deuce before Ronsanto Campbell’s layup sent St. Mary’s off again. Luis Rijo scored on a putback and Thompson canned another three to make it 31-22 at the half.”We try to work on execution first and we just didn’t have that at times,” Moran said.The Spartans pushed the lead to 12 twice early in the third quarter but Williams kept fighting off the canvas and cut the lead to six on Sullivan’s jumper midway through. St. Mary’s responded with an 8-3 run to end the half, led by its dominance on the glass, to head to the fourth up 11 at 44-33.Williams continued to hang around thanks to six early points from Tim Andrea in the fourth quarter but the Bishops could not get the lead under eight for most of the final eight minutes.Manning came up with six huge points in a row to extend the lead back to 12 at 55-43 with 2:40 remaining. Williams got the margin to single digits in the final minute thanks to Souffrant and Louine but Campbell, Thompson and Gagliolo all hit free throws in the final 40.2 seconds to salt away the win.”We’ve always had a difficult time with Williams,” Moran said. “They are coached well and know our team well. This is one of those games where we will take and learn from it.”