Westwood Lady Wildcats blow out Deerfield-Windsor

ALBANY — The Westwood girls asserted their dominance in the Georgia Independent Schools Association Region 3-AAA standings Tuesday night.

In a battle of region leaders, the Lady Wildcats jumped out to a commanding lead on their way to a 59-19 throttling of Deerfield-Windsor at the W.T. Henry Gymnasium.

The victory keeps Westwood with a perfect 19-0 record. They also improved to 8-0 region play.

The Lady Wildcats scored the first 14 points of the game while holding Deerfield-Windsor scoreless for the first quarter and part of the second.

DWS coach Jeff Eubanks called a timeout after Westwood took a 4-0 lead early in the game but it failed to swing the momentum.

Westwood added to a big opening quarter with an even bigger second. They exploded for 22 points and outscored Deerfield 22-8. The result was a 36-8 lead at halftime.

“I think our good start was a result of our defense,” Westwood coach Jenni Smith said. “We played really good man-to-man. We tried to keep it clean and play good defense with good positioning. We try to limit the other team to not such good shots and one shot.”

Freshman Karlie Jones helped Westwood build the big lead. She finished with 10 points in the game, all of which came in the first half.

Deerfield-Windsor got plenty of quality looks in the first half but could not put many in the basket.

The pace of the game slowed in the second half. Westwood scored just six points for the first five minutes of the third quarter. They ended up with 16 points in the quarter.

The win wasn’t to the complete satisfaction of Smith.

“It wasn’t pretty … It was a real ugly ball game,” Smith said. “Lots of turnovers. Deerfield plays hard. I feel like the game got kind of out of control at points. We missed a lot of shots right at the rim that we should have made.”

The Lady Knights’ struggles continued as they scored just five points in the quarter and put Westwood in the double bonus about halfway through the third.

This is the second time Westwood has beaten the Lady Knights this season. They also won a home matchup earlier this month, 52-17.

“Every win is big,” Smith said. “Our region is so close all the way down and everyone is so even.”

The loss ends a mini two-game win streak the Lady Knights had started. They beat Tiftarea on Friday and followed it up with a victory over Terrell Academy on Saturday.

Herald Super 6er Callie Smith finished with 10 points for Westwood.

Deerfield-Windsor was led by Destiny Reed’s six points.

Deerfield-Windsor boys 70, Westwood 38

The Knights got revenge.

And they got in a big way.

Weeks after traveling to Westwood and losing to the Wildcats, Deerfield-Windsor played a complete game on their way to a 70-38 rout of their GISA Region 3-AAA rival.

Chandler Matthews opened the game with a bang, hitting two treys sending the crowd into a frenzy and giving Deerfield a quick 6-0 lead. The quick scorers forced Westwood to call a timeout but it did not matter.

Deerfield scored the final 10 points of the quarter and ended the first up 23-6.

The Knights kept on the pedal in the second quarter. Matthews and Trey Young combined for 16 points and helped Deerfield-Windsor take a 43-18 into halftime.

“I thought we played really well,” DWS coach Gordy Gruhl said. “Defensively, I thought we were excellent. We caused a lot of turnovers. We didn’t quick shoot the ball. We were patient on offense.”

Matthews continued his smooth-shooting, making two more threes in the third quarter. Westwood had no answer for the Knights’ guard play. Matthews finished with 25 points while Young scored 14.

The only trouble Deerfield had was with Collier Baggett. The Knights had multiple bigs in foul trouble but they were still able to limit Baggett to 18 points.

Ethan Shellhaas also had 10 points for Deerfield.