RED BANK – The Westwood girls took three quarters to find their shooting stroke at White Knoll Thursday night, but the Redhawks’ defense never let up.
Nyah Leveretter (21) rises through the contact and puts a shot up. | Ross Burton
Along with Unique Drake’s team-high 23 points, Nya Leveretter scored 15 points and had 14 rebounds, and Maliyah Lockett had 11 points and grabbed 10 boards as Westwood routed the Timberwolves 79-47.
Lockett and Leveretter’s work on the boards carried the team when the shots didn’t always fall in the early going.
“That was big. We’ve been off since Friday,” Westwood head coach Gregory Bauldrick said. “We’re working hard in the gym but we don’t have game tempo.”
It took a little while for Westwood to get up to speed, but the Redhawks were not in any danger of letting the game go.
“We saw on film that they didn’t do a good job of boxing out, so we knew we had some rebounding opportunities,” Bauldrick said. “We prefer them on the offensive end, where we can get some second shots. Nia was big for us tonight and certainly Liyah (Lockett) was able to catch the long ones bouncing off as well.”
Mya Belton’s 13 points and Ta’Mari Frederick’s 10 rounded out the Redhawks five double-figure scorers on the night.
Westwood (8-0) took a 19-9 lead after the first quarter, but the Timberwolves fought back and got within 27-20 midway through the second. The Redhawks closed the first half on an 8-0 run to take a 35-20 lead.
Up 47-33 in the last minute of the third, the Redhawks got a 3-pointer from Belton and a basket from Erin Mines to close out the quarter.
Those two shots were the start of a 32-13 run that closed out the game.
“We were a little tight, it took us a while to get going,” Bauldrick said. “We got it going and we weren’t quite sure with number 14 (White Knoll’s leading scorer, Yamia Johnson, who scored 26 points). Keionna Ray came off the bench and really, really set the tone to defend 14.”
The Redhawks defeated Cardinal Newman 68-62 on Saturday and will head to Charleston to play in the Carolina Invitational next week.
WHS – 19 – 16 – 17 – 27 – 79
WKHS – 9 – 11 – 14 – 13 – 47
WHS:Unique Drake 23, Nya Leveretter 15, Mya Belton 13, Maliyah Lockett 11, Ta’Mari Frederick 10, Mines 5, Simon 2.
WKHS: Yamia Johnson 26, Williams 9, Squirewell 5, Strawder 3, Singleton 2, C. Norman 2.