Manual roars back in fourth to clinch 2A state championship game berth
- Jonathan Michel
- Mar 12
- 7 min read
Updated: Mar 12
CHAMPAIGN — It was apparent from the suit-and-tie attire on Manual’s sideline that the Rams were in Champaign for a business trip.
One year after dropping both of their games at the Class 2A State Finals, determination to not repeat that fate was on the minds of the Rams as they trailed Tolono Unity in the second half of Thursday’s Class 2A state semifinal.
Manual had to battle and battle and battle just to get a lead but used its defense in the fourth quarter to take care of business and beat the Rockets 62-57 in front of a jubilant orange and black-clad crowd.
Over an eight-minute span from the third quarter into the fourth, the Rams went on a 20-3 run to turn a 44-36 deficit into a 56-47 lead and sealed their spot in their first state title game since 2010. Manual will take on Quincy Notre Dame for the championship at 12 p.m. on Saturday.
“Hard-fought game,” Manual head coach Marvin Jordan said. “My guys battled, we battled and we fought each and every possession as hard as we could. It was pretty much all I could ask from my guys.”
“To stay together as a team through the adversity we went though, it speaks to who we've been all year,” he added. Again, that’s a great testament to these guys putting in work every day and believing in the plan that we have.”
Being in the place they were in last year gave the Rams a big boost down the final stretch, where they silenced a hopeful Unity team that was making just their second trip to state in team history.
“It helped us out big because last time we kind of treated it as like a nice trip, but this time we came out with the mindset that it's a business trip,” Manual guard Tahj Tolliver said. “We aren’t coming down here to play. We’re coming out and we want to win it all, not just be down here.”
“We’ve been ready for this all year”
Manual never held the lead in the third quarter and went down by as many as eight, but 10 third-quarter points from senior guard Josh Humbles helped them claw back and trail 44-40 entering the fourth.
Humbles, a veteran and returning starter from last year’s fourth-place team, battled foul trouble in the first half and was limited to three points early, but finished with a team-high 19.
The senior stepped up when Manual needed him most and scored five of the Rams’ points during an 8-0 run to tie the game at 44 with 7:12 left in the fourth. He also added a layup during a 10-0 fourth-quarter run during which Manual took the lead for good and finished a team-high 19 points to go with six rebounds.
“I just kept bringing energy on the bench so even though we were facing adversity, it helped me come back and play stronger and be ready for the next half,” Humbles said.
A layup from forward Jaquan Brown gave Manual a 46-44 lead for a 10-0 run. Manual's lead grew to 54-47 as layups from Reggie Postlewaite and Humbles electrified the Rams faithful.
“It felt great,” Brown said. “At first, I was kind of nervous, but when we hit the second half, I had a lot of energy on offense and defense. In the first half, my offense wasn't working that much, so I had to have defense, energy and intensity so my teammates will get stops and scores.”
And that’s exactly what Manual did. The Rams’ relentless defense provided a big spark as they finished with 13 steals, which led to 25 points off turnovers.
The Rams forced the Rockets into missing four of their first five shots in the final frame as Unity played like a well-oiled machine in the first three quarters before crumbling apart in the fourth.
“We were able to make those things happen by trusting each other, sticking to the game plan and paying attention to details,” Jordan said. “When we're clicking like that, we're pretty good defensively.
“We learned from our mistakes last year and came in more focused and came in together, built chemistry and we’ve been ready for this all year.”
The Rams closed the game in impressive fashion too. Despite nearly giving Unity a chance to make a miracle comeback, Manual made eight of its last 11 from the stripe to close the door after going 4-for-10 to start from the line.
The result? A chance to win their first state championship since 1997, the final year of a historic four-peat.
“It means everything to me man, it's what we work for,” Jordan said. “To be able to come back and storm back in those moments is important. It's key, because we know we go through those things.”
Postlewaite “won’t let us lose”
Manual jumped out of the gates hot with Postlewaite putting his fingerprints all over the game.
In a first four minutes that saw four lead changes, Manual gained an 11-6 advantage as the senior guard came away with three steals in a 56-second span that led to a pair of layups from Brown and a coast-to-coast layup from himself.
His contributions helped Manual stay close whenever Unity looked poised to break the game open during the first three quarters. He finished with a jam-packed stat line of 13 points, eight rebounds, seven steals and six assists.
“We got a lot of guys on the roster that won’t let us lose,” Jordan said. “Reggie is definitely one of those guys. He shows up each and every game. [I] can’t ask for a better player, he’s super coachable, he’s everything a coach could ask for.”
Foul trouble hampered Manual early in the second with three whistles going against the Rams in the first minute and Humbles picking up his second foul with seven minutes remaining in the frame.
Unity went on a 7-0 run in a roughly 90-second span to seize a 22-16 lead with 6:01 left in the second.
“When those guys [Humbles, Postlewaite and Tolliver] go out there, they're pretty much the catalysts for us,” Jordan said. “When you replace them with younger guys, you just kind of got to control and guide a little bit more, it’s like playing PlayStation where you got to put guys in position.
“But the group I have, what better group to do it with?,” he added. “Top to bottom, they're all coachable. Everybody listens, everybody respects each other, everybody's great teammates, and that's what we need.”
Battling through adversity yet again
Manual nipped at the Rockets’ heels and cut the deficit to two points three more times, including a layup from Jaemel Shipp to go down 28-26 going into halftime. Unity extended its lead to as many as eight in the third quarter with a key and-1 from Dane Eisenmenger and a layup from Tyler Henry off an offensive rebound.
However, a Rams team that’s hung its hat on being battle-tested all season wasn’t ready to waver.
“We underestimated them in the first half, that's a good team,” Shipp said. “But once we broke it down how they play, and we got into their heads, it started to ease up and it started going our way in the second half.”
“We came out in the second half and it almost didn't go the way we wanted to early,” Jordan said. “But again, we continued to stick to that right there. [I said] ‘Let's keep fighting, let's continue to push each other, let's keep getting better play after play.’
In addition to Humbles and Postlewaite’s leading numbers, Tolliver finished with 13 points, three assists and three steals and Brown chipped in 10 points. All five of Unity’s starters scored between eight and 14 points with Eisenmenger putting up the high mark for the Rockets.
"First and foremost, let's give the Rams of Peoria some credit," Tolono Unity head coach Matt Franks said. "They battled and made enough plays late to pull away and get a win. We just didn't get the bounce late."
Manual shot 43 percent from the field to Unity’s 49 percent, but shot 11 more field goals due to extra opportunities created by its defense and 16 offensive rebounds.
Humbles led Manual with 19 points while Postlewaite added 13 points, seven rebounds, seven steals and six assists. Tolliver tallied 11 points and Brown chipped in 10 to the winning cause.
“They got some things done that usually don’t get done against our defense and I think that was good coaching and they have great players over there also,” Jordan said. “But we’ve seen a lot this year, we’ve played a lot of competition and all styles. That’s pretty much the way we like it.”
Adding to the legacy
Not only are the hopes of a state champion hailing from Central Illinois on the line, Jordan and the Rams want to etch their names in the program’s long, storied history book and hang another banner.
The Manual name and legacy is a big factor in why Jordan wanted to attend Manual during his playing days.
“It was the actual, real reason why I went to Manual as a child,” Jordan said. “There's a lot of reason why a lot of these kids go here because we want to go and get into those record books and the tradition is just amazing down here.”
Despite boasting five state titles to their ledger already, Manual isn’t satisfied and won’t be until they’re holding up the trophy for its sixth.
“I feel like I had something to prove from last year because I feel like we shouldn't have lost,” Shipp said.
“But we took the game as a business trip and now we’re trying to get the job done.”
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