All the pressure is on, junior Jake Russell is fouled late in the fourth quarter down 2 points. He sinks the first one. The crowd holds their breath as he lines up to take his second shot. Everyone in the gym gasped as the ball rolled out of the hoop and fell into senior captain Zach Epp’s hands. Chaos ensued as the ball was kicked out to senior captain Enzo Ferrero to fire up a three-pointer. He missed. Epp came down with another clutch rebound and subsequently lost the ball after a controversial no-call by the referees.
The chaos in the last minute was representative of the entire game from start to finish. Westfield lost a heartbreaker to Linden 48-46. Down the stretch, Westfield was provided with multiple opportunities to win the game including an inbound play with 10 seconds left. Head coach Jim McKeon said, “The play we ran wasn’t anything new; our timing was off.”
During this play, Jake Russell was fouled and left with a chance to tie the game up with 2 free throws. He said, “There was a significant amount of pressure during those 2 shots. I felt great after the first shot and the second shot didn’t feel good when I released it.”
Westfield entered the game hot, knocking down multiple shots. Jake Russell came out hot and nailed 2 early three-pointers. Russell said, “I felt better than any other game this year. I kept shooting this game more than most and my shots were falling.”
Westfield did a good job at slowing down Linden’s fast-paced offense however, their drawback was their erratic and out-of-control passing. Senior captain Enzo Ferrero said, “The defensive game plan was to stop number 2 from getting to the paint and to the elbow where he likes it, and number four from getting his threes, which we did a really good job of but it honestly just came down to the turnovers once again.”
Westfield was riddled with turnovers turning the ball over 20 times. This is the second game this season the Blue Devils had 20+ turnovers. McKeon said, “Turnovers have been our achilles heel for at least three games now, maybe four. I think we’ve had three games straight now of 15-plus turnovers. We’re beating ourselves and we’re playing top competition across the state, so you gotta take care of the basketball.”
The Blue Devils are looking to bounce back against Pingry at 1:00 pm on Saturday at WHS.
