After beating Scotch Plains-Fanwood by a score of 58-32 on Jan. 16, Westfield headed to SPF looking to add one more win under their belt before heading to the Union County Tournament.
SPF came out aggressively, looking to force Westfield into making mistakes. “They tried to speed us up in the beginning,” said head coach Liz McKeon. “Definitely a lot of back-and-forth, and then we were able to calm ourselves and take control from the second quarter on.”
Westfield started to move the ball, finding more open shots and was able to put the Raiders on the back burner. By the second quarter, the Blue Devils excelled at “team defense, team offense and sharing the ball” making them a “hard team to stop,” said McKeon.
As the game went on, tensions rose between the two teams over the calls made on the court. “I just tell them to calm down and to take a deep breath,” McKeon said. “Sometimes you just need a reset.”
Westfield came out in the second half leading 34-21 and kept their foot on the gas. The Blue Devil defense led to more offensive opportunities early into the third quarter. A huge Blue Devil steal led to a three-pointer from junior Sophie Lane boosting the lead. From that point on, Westfield exploded and the Blue Devils’ tight defense held SPF to only 11 points in the second half.
The team also found great offensive success from sophomore Mairin Fowler. “Mairin did an amazing job,” said McKeon. “Taking control of the game, taking control of the team and running our offense.”
This huge win over SPF will help boost the confidence of the Blue Devils as they move into the UCT. McKeon said, “We still have every day to get better. We need to continue working on our jump stops, ball fakes, team defense and communication. Once we have all these things we just have to go from there.”
To keep the Blue Devils busy until the start of the UCT, at 1 p.m. on Feb. 8, they will travel to face Trinity Hall.
Players were unavailable for comments after the game as per McKeon.
