As Jared Lehner drained a three to open up the fourth quarter, Westfield extended their lead 46-35, setting themselves up for a successful fourth quarter to end a resilient win over Governor Livingston.
As the preliminary round of the Union County Tournament kicked off, the Governor Livingston Highlanders traveled to Westfield to take on the Blue Devils, with both teams facing elimination with a loss. “Anybody can beat anybody on a given night, especially in a tournament style,” said head coach James McKeon. With their backs against the wall, the Blue Devils used that mindset to propel them forward into the next round of the tournament.
Westfield started out slow going down 11-0 early in the first quarter. McKeon said, “we can’t go down 11 nothing in the next round, or even beyond that, it’s going to be too hard to come back. A lot of situations throughout the year put us in these types of situations so we know we have the ability to come back, but it’s a lot better to be up than it is to be down early.”
Despite a fight from Westfield in the first half to cut down the Highlander’s lead, GL still was in control heading into halftime, as they led 29-24. “Excecute the game plan, we were giving their best scorer too many three-pointers. We didn’t lock in, know the game plan and know what’s going on,” McKeon told his team after a disappointing first half.
This led to a Westfield outbreak in the second half, as three pointers were falling left and right for the Blue Devils, giving them a commanding lead for the entirety of the half. “I liked how after a slow start, in the locker room, we were able to collect ourselves coming out. We played a much better second half and kind of flipped it around. Being down 11, now we win by 11,” said Senior Tri-Captain Max MacEacheron.
Westfield’s leading scorer of the night was senior tri-captain Jake Russell. After a career high 21 points last game against Madison, he tallied another 16 points in Tuesday night’s victory. Westfield missed a lot of shots early on, Russell mentioned, “Our shot selection was poor, we were chucking threes in the first half, and we were inefficient, which led to bad shots. So we need to cut down on bad shots and work better on offense to find good shots.”
Westfield had 7 total scorers in last night’s game and had 27 rebounds as a team along with 14 assists. Westfield’s defense was on lockdown as the team recorded 10 steals and scored many breakaway layups.
Westfield moves onto the next round of the Union County tournament and will face Oratory Preparatory School in the first round Thursday night at Westfield High School at 5:30.
