After the Greenbrier East Lady Spartans 76-52 loss to George Washington last Saturday, the consensus was thought to be that this year East is just not experienced or good enough to compete for a championship.
However, that thought would have been completely wrong. The feeling inside the locker room is that after competing with one of the better teams in the state for a half, the Spartans are trending upward in the confidence category.
Head coach Jim Justice said in the pregame that “it was really, really good for our girls to stay with them (GW) as close as we did.”
That confidence was on display Monday night, March 15, when East traveled to Oak Hill and beat the Red Devils 60-38.
In a scrappy game where fouls mounted up and fast breaks were aplenty, East settled down enough to run away with the game.
Cadence Stewart opened up the scoring for the Spartans with consecutive three-pointers and Layla Pence then got two straight buckets herself in the paint and East led 10-2 early on.
The Spartans struggled from the foul line and would have had a bigger lead even earlier if they could have knocked them down, but Stewart hit another long three and then she had a driving floater to end the quarter, and the Spartans held a 17-10 advantage after one.
Oak Hill (0-2) was pretty much a one-girl show with Simaya Lynch starring in that role. She hit a nice crossover, step-back jumper to trim the Red Devils deficit to five points, but a minute later Stewart hit her fourth trey of the game, then she found Brookelyn Morgan for two and added an assist to her stat column as well.
A Brooke Davis free throw made the Spartans lead 31-15 in the latter stages of the half and Stewart’s fifth 3-pointer extended that to 33-17.
At the break, it was 38-22 after Stewart’s sixth trifecta of the contest.
The game stayed up-and-down in the third as Lynch tried her best to keep Oak Hill within striking distance by scoring nine points, but the Spartans depth really stepped up. Ari Gil Edo gave some nice minutes, Pence had her best game and Josie Patterson drilled a three, as the improvement East has made continued on the upward trajectory in this one. Taylor Boswell scored the final bucket of the night to clinch the big bounce-back victory.
East did not shoot it that well as a team at just 29%, but their ability to get out in transition and hit the offensive glass helped them greatly as they outrebounded the Red Devils 61-38, including 25 on the offensive end.
Stewart led the way for the Spartans with 26 points and 10 rebounds. Davis had nine points and nine rebounds, and Pence was solid all-around with six points, 12 rebounds, three assists and a steal.
Lynch led Oak Hill with 18 points and six rebounds.
With the win, East is back at .500 at 3-3.
The Spartans continued their busy week with a home game against the Princeton Tigers on Tuesday night, March 16. Look for that recap soon.
Stats and quotes courtesy of Oldies 93.3
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.