HINTON —
Is there anything the Westside Lady Renegades aren’t good at?
“Well, tonight we did pretty well,” Westside coach Jamie Lusk said with a laugh.
Pretty well is an understatement.
The No. 1 Westside Lady Renegades went into the home of the Summers County Lady Bobcats and beat them around for four quarters, winning 91-51.
You would have to go way back in the history books to find a time that one of these two teams hasn’t won the AA State Championship — Summers County won six in a row before Westside ascended to the thrown last year — but one team was clearly dominant Wednesday night.
“I was proud of the way we showed up to play. That’s a long trip and this is a tough place to play,” Lusk said. “Summers is well coached, and this is a big win for us mentally and physically.”
The Lady Renegades, much like their male counterparts the night before, led from the opening tip behind a stellar team effort.
“I always like balance; you have to have good balance,” Lusk said. “We want to be hard to guard. If we’re scoring outside, you’ve got to go man. When you go man, we’ve got to have our post players playing well. Our post players off the bench and Megan Endicott all made good post moves tonight.”
Summers County’s legendary coach Wayne Ryan seemed stunned after the defeat.
“Well, we had some adversity with some of our lineups,” Ryan said. “We went big and could not do anything offensively. We went small and couldn’t guard them. Basically, they whipped us.”
Westside shot the lights out from 3-point range, scoring on six in the first quarter.
Hope Lester led the way for the No. 1 Lady Renegades with 35 points, 12 of which came from beyond the arc. She added 11 rebounds for a double double. Danielle Brown, Faith Davis and Morgan Spolarich all scored in double digits.
“After tonight, I’m very happy,” Lusk said. “We’ve been waiting for a game like this where all of our team is playing well. We can be a hard team to beat. On nights we struggle, we’re still playing well. Tonight has been our best performance of the season.”
The 19-1 Renegades haven’t had too many games where they’ve struggled, except for the lone loss of the season to Class AAA University 57-46 in the Big Atlantic Classic.
“Like I said the night of the Classic, you gotta learn from your mistakes, you’ve got to learn from losses,” Lusk said. “You’ve got to play every night. We learned and have played with a lot of intensity and passion we learned from that loss. We’ve got to keep on getting better.”
Since the loss to University, Westside has outscored it’s opponents a combined 419-150.
Learning from a difficult loss is just what Wayne Ryan hopes his Lady Bobcats will do.
“We didn’t quit,” Ryan said. “We had to play people out of position. They’re a very good basketball team. We’ll live to play another day. We’ve been around for twenty-five years.”
The No. 6 Summers County Lady Bobcats will travel to Scott on Saturday, while Westside will wrap up their regular season at Logan on Friday.
Westside (19-1)
Morgan Spolarich 5 0-0 11, Hope Lester 14 3-3 35, Danielle Brown 5 1-1 15, Faith Davis 4 2-4 13, Megan Endicott 1 2-2 4, Kristen Hash 1 0-2 2, Mackenzie Endicott 2 1-1 5, Hope Davis 1 0-0 2, Lakyn Walker 2 0-0 4, Brooke Milam 0 0-1 0. Totals: 35 9-15 91.
Summers County(14-7)
Haley Shrewsbury 1 0-0 2, Avery Pivont 6 4-8 19, Abby Taylor 3 1-2 7, Brennah Davis 3 0-0 6, Emily Smith 1 0-0 2, Tyra Wynes 0 3-6 3, Audrey Holley 3 0-0 7, Kaitlynn Thomas 0 0-1 0, Brandy Morrison 1 3-4 5, Brittany Bonds 0 0-2 0. Totals: 18 11-23 51.
W 32 19 23 17 — 91
SC 10 13 13 15 — 51
3-point goals — W: 12 (Spolarich, Hope Lester 4, Brown 4, Faith Davis 3); SC: 4 (Pivont 3, Holley). Fouled out — none.
email: jrollins@register-herald.com and follow on Twitter at @JDanielRollins
Today's Sports Front
Related Photos
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Westside’s Hope Lester (34) makes a last second shot to end the first quarter as Summers County’s Avery Pivont (11) defends. Lester scored 35 points and grabbed 11 rebounds as the Renegades improved to 19-1 with a win over the Bobcats in Hinton Wednesday. F. Brian Ferguson
Westside dominant in easy win over Summers County
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