Early in the first quarter, Linden swooped in to pick off a pass from Westfield, leading to a breakaway dunk. This summed up the night for the Blue Devils as they continued to struggle against a tall Linden team, losing 67-47.
No. 7 ranked Linden came out hot early in the game, starting on a 9-2 run and never looking back. After losing in blowout fashion, Westfield head coach James Mckeon said, “Everything was challenging,” and no positives came from the game.
To add on to the loss, junior Liam Washbourne got injured in the third quarter, getting up with trainers after staying on the floor for a few minutes after a collision with a Linden player.
Even with all the negatives from the game, junior Donald Meixner found success. In the third quarter he scored 7 straight points for the Blue Devils, leading to a team and career high 13 points. He also led the team in rebounds. Meixner said, “No matter how much we went down, I just wanted to make sure I tried my hardest and do whatever I could on the floor.”
Linden towered over Westfield which played a crucial part in the game. The Blue Devils’ second tallest player, standing around 6’3″, was shorter than Linden’s smallest player on the court.
Westfield had few positives after tonight’s performance but tri-captain Jake Russel mentioned, “We saw the bench guys do pretty well.”
Westfield plays some of the toughest competition in the state. Mckeon said, “I’m going to take it how it is. It’s a top 10 team in the state. If you don’t show up and play and compete for 4 quarters, bad things happen. I actually think they were nice to us tonight. It’s a continuous challenge when everybody is in the top 20 every night. We aren’t rising to the occasion and believing that we can actually win, and that’s what’s holding us back.”
Meixner commented on the positives of this challenging schedule, saying “playing great teams helps us prepare [for tournaments later in the year] because we’re seeing teams that aren’t going to be as good as the teams we face in the tournaments.”
Westfield’s main focus now is their senior day game on Saturday. Russell said, “We know that we’re going to come back stronger. We’re going to go harder in practice, and we’re really gonna be focusing on our next games because they’re definitely must win now that we lost these couple.”
Westfield will host the Union Farmers on Saturday at 12 p.m for their senior day game as they look to get back on track with a home win.
