Sometimes, it's a really good feeling to know you were right about something all along. And it's even better when it's about someone else and not yourself.
I knew, almost from the first moment that Lauren Manis stepped on a high school basketball court, that she had the potential to be something special. She was tall and getting taller, naturally athletic and blesse
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Holy Cross' Lauren Manis is the first from her school
to score 2,000 points and grab 1,000 rebounds.
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Wednesday night at the Hart Center in Worcester, Manis became the only Holy Cross basketball player in history, regardless of gender, to reach 2,000 career points as well as 1,000 career rebounds.
The 6-foot-1 senior from Franklin via Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro needed one point to get there as the game against Loyola was winding down, but she took the initiative -- she stole the ball from Loyola guard Bri Rozzi and went the length of the court and was fouled under the basket with 8.2 seconds left.
She netted both. No problem.
"I thought the biggest thing for me was doing it at home, in front of my family and teammates," Manis told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette after the game. It was a low-key quote, but exactly what I expected from Manis, who has always been demure in her post-game quotes and always made a point of shifting the attention paid to her exploits to her teammates.
I was fortunate enough to see her score her 1,000th collegiate point in a game against Brown at the Hart Center last year -- almost by chance, in that I did not know that she was close at the time. It was just a fortuitous coincidence that I found the opportunity to head to Worcester for a game, and I apologized to her afterward that in my post-employment and pre-blog/podcast days, I did not have a forum in which to memorialize her accomplishment.
That was OK, she said. She was just happy I made it up there. So was I.
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| Holy Cross' Lauren Manis. |
I'll readily admit, Manis caught my eye in her earliest incarnation as a Shamrock. You couldn't help but notice that she had skills, even if they were raw and in need of refinement. That would come steadily, and she was surrounded by a supremely talented core group of teammates, so she did not have to bear an inordinate amount of pressure as she matured.
She was a three-time Sun Chronicle all-star, and to the casual observer, it appeared that all of the pieces of Manis' game were in place in her senior year. She averaged well over 18 points a game and in double figures in rebounds as the Shamrocks captured the school's only state championship, her 19-point performance helping Feehan defeat Natick, 59-32, in the Division 1 title game at Springfield's MassMutual Center.
But I had a feeling there was more in store for Manis -- much more. As much as her game had improved by that time (she finished with 922 career points at Feehan, almost joining teammate Katie Nelson in quadruple figures), I could see that she was still on the upward tack of the learning curve and almost ready to tap that next-level talent, but not quite there yet.
Fortunately, the coaching staff at Holy Cross saw the same thing. And it didn't take long for them to bring out the best in her -- developing her mid-range and deeper shots, getting her dribble under full control, teaching her how to protect the ball and finish under the basket at a higher percentage. Right now, I'd bet there is no more complete player in this Division 1 region than Lauren Manis.
And her season is not over. The Crusaders, now 18-11, have a home game Monday in the Patriot League playoffs. The 66-48 win over Loyola helped Holy Cross earn the No. 4 seed in the conference tournament and a visit from No. 5 Lafayette in the quarterfinal round. And you can bet Manis is laser-focused upon that.
I could not be happier for Lauren Manis, who is the living embodiment of the premise that you can become better every single day.
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