WESTBROOK – Just four days after they knocked off one of the top teams in the state on the road, the Westbrook girls basketball team returned home on Jan. 10 and ran to their fourth win in a row, topping Bonny Eagle 57-40.
The win against the Scots (3-7) came on the heels of what was perhaps the Blazes’ (5-3) biggest win of the season, as Westbrook traveled to Marshwood (7-3) on Jan. 6 and came away with a huge 51-47 over the second-ranked Hawks.
Westbrook coach Chris Aube said he was worried that the Blazes would have a letdown against the Scots, especially after such a big, emotional win.
“(This) was a game that scared me,” Aube said. “We were coming off a big win down at Marshwood and Bonny Eagle’s very athletic and they have some very good players. We were able to defend them and I thought we frustrated them and we were able to score, which was nice.”
Paige Baldwin had a huge game offensively for the Blue Blazes. She led all scorers with 19 points in the game and she was constantly grabbing rebounds and converting chances down low. Point guard Jess Harris had 12 points, including several breakaway layups as the Blazes battled a tenacious Bonny Eagle full-court press for much of the game.
The game stared out close as both the Scots and the Blazes were getting good looks in the first quarter. Westbrook did stretch its lead to as much as 10 points, but the Scots kept battling back and got a huge hoop from point guard Olivia Dalphonse (who had a team-high eight points) at the buzzer to make the score 19-13 after one.
The Scots started to ramp up the defensive pressure in the second as the Blazes started to widen their lead. At first, it seemed that Westbrook was having trouble dealing with the press, and Aube was forced to call time out at one point as Westbrook was unable to solve the Scots’ trapping pressure.
The Scots closed the gap to as little as eight points late in the quarter as Caitlyn Hawxwell (three points) and Shannon Sanborn (six points) hit some key hoops, but the Blazes settled down and got a couple of quick baskets from Harris to give the Blazes a 12-point cushion with less than a minute to go before the halftime break.
But the first-half action wasn’t quite over yet. With time running out in the half, Westbrook’s Emily Blackmore (three points) buried a long 3 at the buzzer to send the Blazes into the half with a 39-24 lead.
Coming out of the break, it was clear that the Blazes had made the necessary adjustments to deal with the Bonny Eagle defensive pressure. Westbrook was using long passes to players releasing down the floor to get some easy hoops, getting the lead as high as 21 points in the quarter.
Aube said he was happy with how his team adjusted to the pressure. “I thought we recognized some open players and got some easy baskets off of it,” he said. “To come out and make some shots and execute our offense, I think that was key for us.”
While the game was never really in doubt in the second half, the Scots did manage to cut into the Blazes’ lead, getting it down from 21 to 15 at one point in the fourth, forcing Aube to call a time out to calm his team down and remind them to be patient on offense. After the game, Aube said he knew that the lead was safe, but he wanted to make sure his team knew how to play when they were in front, something that will be helpful in a closer game down the road. “This is a good league, not very often do we have nights when we’re up 20,” he said.
Aube said that the importance of the game against the Scots was amplified due to the fact that the Blazes will be facing off against the Scots once again later in the season. “This was a big one,” he said. “Bonny Eagle’s one of the teams we play twice, so we needed to get this one and put the pressure on them (in the rematch).”
Westbrook point guard Jess Harris looks for an open teammate as
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