Westfield went numb. An early lead had evaporated, a thrumming offense had stalled, a tenacious full-court press had disintegrated. Roselle Catholic embarked on a 14-0 run, turning a 16–5 Westfield lead into a deficit.
The Blue Devils would recover, clinging to the Lions until the final minute, but they never reclaimed the lead in a 52–42 loss. The loss snapped a 10-game winning streak against Roselle Catholic.
When it was over, the Westfield players slumping on the bench converged with the ones trudging off the court. They went through the handshake line. Then they hastily grabbed their bags and funneled out of the gym.
Head coach Liz McKeon wanted to have a talk.
“You can’t feel sorry for yourself,” McKeon said she told her players. “Next game. We gotta move on. It is what it is.”
The Blue Devils, reigning Group 4 champions, trounced the Lions in three meetings last year. This meeting went differently.
“We looked flat,” McKeon said. “We had no energy. We didn’t talk on defense. Telegraphing our passes. You’re not winning a game when you have 21 turnovers and 5 assists as a team.”
The game’s opening stages ran opposite to that holistic appraisal. Westfield charged to a 16–5 lead. Then came the 14–0 run. The one-sided spell, the product mainly of those pesky Westfield turnovers, left the Blue Devils floundering while the Lions surged.
Roselle Catholic’s Jasmine McKay and Sidney Smith torched Westfield, each dropping 20 points. Both are slick, athletic guards who weaved through the defense and drilled open threes.
“They have two very talented guards that can take over a game, and that’s what they did,” McKeon said.
Westfield’s full-court press harried Roselle Catholic during the initial Blue Devil rush, but it soon lost its teeth. The Lions’ fluid ball movement swept past Westfield.
The Blue Devils attempted to regain a foothold in the game. Paige Gorczyca led Westfield in scoring with 15 points; Catie Carayannopoulos followed with 13 and had a monster day on the glass. Sara Rooney scored 8 points, Sutton Factor had 4 and Megan Logan added 2.
But those efforts couldn’t propel Westfield past Roselle Catholic.
“I give Roselle Catholic a lot of credit,” McKeon said. “We knew that they’re improved a great amount since last year, and they came out gunning for us, and they completed the job and we did not.”
Westfield knotted the score at 31 after a ferocious Carayannopoulos finished an and-1 midway through the third quarter. The Blue Devils teetered on the brink of a lead. But in the blink of an eye, Roselle Catholic reeled off 5 points, giving the Lions a lead they would never relinquish.
Huge shots at pivotal moments swung the Blue Devils close, but the pendulum always tilted back the other way.
“Our heads were definitely down,” Gorczyca said, “because we were losing in the first half, and we didn’t come out as strong in the second half.”
The game also marked the return from injury of Annie Ryan, Westfield’s leading returning scorer. Ryan checked in at the beginning of the second quarter for her first minutes of the season. She played much of the second quarter and much of the fourth. Ryan looked rusty, but McKeon wasn’t worried.
“Annie’s gonna be fine,” McKeon said. “This was just her easing back in.”
After dropping to 1-2, Westfield will look to bounce back Thursday against Cranford. New Providence and Roselle Catholic, who played tight games against Westfield, both dispatched the Cougars over the last week.
The game presents a tasty opportunity for Westfield to snap its uncharacteristic losing skid. The Blue Devils will focus on repairing their assist-turnover ratio and shoring up other gaps after two disappointing losses.
