Westwood’s Cameron Grant (4) battles against the glass.
The Westwood Redhawks traveled to Dreher High School Friday night to face the formidable Blue Devils in a rematch. The Blue Devils beat Westwood by seven points in their previous match at home. Friday’s game was much closer in terms of the play, and a little closer by score. The Blue Devils prevailed in the match 56-51 in an up-and-down game, which wasn’t decided until late in the fourth quarter.
Before the game, Westwood head coach Terry Dozier said he believed his team had improved enough to reverse their fortunes since their last meeting.
“I always believe we will win. We need to play like we did in Chapin,” Dozier said. “We finally won on the road. We need to limit them to one shot per possession.” Dozier also said that, as in the last match, containing the Dreher center, Terin Mack, was one of the keys to victory.
Jon Richards, head coach for the Blue Devils, wasn’t sure what to expect.
“Westwood is a new team in the conference,” Richards said. “We are still learning what coach Dozier does, still learning about their players. So this is after we played them for 32 minutes, now we are looking at the tendencies we saw last time. We are prepared. I think they will do something different on defense on our number 12 (Mack). Whoever executes best on offense will win.”
The game began as a defensive, low but even scoring affair until late in the quarter when Dreher’s John Myers hit two 3-pointers in quick succession. These points gave Dreher the lead by the quarter’s end by a score of 12-8. Dreher kept Mack largely on the bench and out of foul trouble for later play.
The second quarter play and scoring was quite even, with each team scoring 14 points. Westwood sunk four buckets, and were perfect from the free throw line, hitting six for six. With two minutes to go in the half, Westwood had cut its deficit to only four points, 22-18 in favor of Dreher. At the buzzer, Dreher had extended its lead to six with the score 26-20.
The third quarter was Westwood’s finest hour, as Antonio Wright hit two 3-pointers and another bucket. Gerald Vaughn hit another 3-pointer and two other players scored baskets. Westwood scored first in the half, bringing the score to within 3 points. After a fast break by Adonus Lee, Westwood only lagged by a single point. At 5:09 to go in the quarter the game was tied 27-27.
One of Westwood’s 3pointers gave the Redhawks the lead, 30-27. The score would see-saw back and forth as Dreher came back with a 3-pointer by Mack, tying the game 30-30. The quarter ended with the score still tied 35-35. The Redhawks outscored the blue Devils 15-9 in the third quarter.
In the beginning of the final quarter, the breaks were still going Westwood’s way, as Lee hit a pair of foul shots, returning Westwood into the lead 39-37. Shortly after the quarter began, Dreher’s big gun, Mack, really began to attend to his work. He scored again and again, usually being fouled in the process for even more points. Mack scored 15 points in the quarter, to lead his team into the lead 56-48 with seconds to go. The Redhawks’ Solomon Walden sunk a 3-pointer in the last seconds to round out the score 56-51 Dreher. Dreher scored 21 points in the last quarter, 12 of which were by Mack. Mack was the game’s high scorer with 23 points. Westwood’s high scorer was Wright with 13.
Tuesday night, A.C. Flora got the better of Westwood, 51-42. Cameron Grant led the ‘Hawks with 11 points. Tonight (Feb. 1) Westwood travels to Camden.
