Must be Destiny

ALBANY — Entering Friday night’s game against Randolph Clay, the Westover Lady Patriots had two main objectives: Win — and stop Destiny Mitchell.

They didn’t accomplish the first, and only sort of accomplished the latter, as Mitchell scored a game-high of 28 points in a 59-48 victory against the Lady Patriots.

Coming off a 53-point display that ended in a defeat to Bainbridge, Mitchell knew a win was what’s important.

“The game plan for me was to (always) score another 53 points, but I really just wanted to win and for my teammates to play better than they did against Bainbridge,” said Mitchell, who got little support in the 77-69 loss to the Lady Bearcats, scoring all but 16 of the team’s points.

Two points shy of double figures by the end of the first quarter, Mitchell appeared as if she was going to have her way against Westover. But when the Lady Patriots’ defense tried to put a clamp on her, she had no choice but to look to her teammates to step up.

Asha Alexander heeded the call as she finished second in scoring with 21 points and helped the Lady Red Devils hang on to the lead for the duration of the game. Casey Sands contributed five points.

“The emphasis for (Friday’s) game was to rebound from a loss,” Randolph Clay head coach Jennifer Acree said. “Westover has some outstanding guards so we knew we had to come with our A-game and do a better job of getting the other four players involved so everything wouldn’t be on Destiny.”

With a 28-20 halftime score, the Lady Patriots were still in great position to make a run in the second half and hand Randolph Clay another sour defeat. But both teams went cold in the third quarter putting up a combined three points in the first four and a half minutes.

By the start of the fourth quarter, Mitchell had snapped out of her momentary funk and ripped off 12 points in the final frame to close the deal and get the Lady Red Devils back in the win column.

“We pulled it out by playing better defense in the second half and taking our time on offense,” Micthell said. “I wanted to take control of the game late because I didn’t want us to lose our composure. We know if we keep playing hard we will do well and go farther than we did last year.”

DyTiesha Dunson led the Lady Patriots with 18 points, followed by Kahles Fletcher’s 10 points. Lessily Colwell added nine points and Senna Colley chipped in four of her own.