As a freshman last year, Taylor Westgate was the focal point of the Oak Hill Golden Eagles’ offense and one of the team’s most gifted players.
Tuesday night was no different.
The sophomore center was dominant from start to finish, scoring 20 points and bringing down 15 boards in a 51-37 victory over long-time rival Marion to help the Golden Eagles improve to 2-0 on the season.
Marion, who had won their first two games of the season against Pendleton Heights and Lafayette Harrison, dropped to 2-1.
Westgate was involved early, scoring six points in the first quarter to help the Golden Eagles take an early 12-6 lead. While Westgate was getting the job done offensively, the defense focused on stopping Marion’s talented center Rashaya Kyle, who was coming off a 24-point, 24-rebound performance against the Raiders.
As was the case in most of their games last season, the Golden Eagles’ suffocating matchup zone made life miserable for their opponent, as Oak Hill jumped out to a 26-12 lead at halftime.
With several players forced to the bench due to foul trouble in the second quarter, Oak Hill’s reserves answered the call, sparking a 9-0 run to help build a comfortable cushion.
“[Our depth] was huge tonight,” Oak Hill head coach Todd Law said after the game. “What our bench did in the second quarter against a team of that caliber is just nothing short of incredible. I’ve got three starters down on the bench with two fouls, and they stepped up and not only maintained the lead, they extended it. We know we can go deep into our bench and it paid off tonight.”
Along with that, the Golden Eagles held Kyle to just one point in the first half, which came on a free throw.
Last year, a 14-point halftime lead might have been too much for the Giants to overcome.
But, this is much different, and much improved, Marion Giants team.
After making some halftime changes, the Giants’ offense came to life in the third quarter. Back-to-back triples from Del’Reann Horton helped spark an 11-0 run that got Marion back into the game. Kyle, who didn’t have a field goal in the first half, scored nine points in the stanza.
“They had their defense sagging in on Rashaya [the entire first half,]” Marion head coach Lawrence Jordan said. “In the first half, we didn’t adjust very well to it, [but] at halftime, we made some adjustments, we came out and changed our defense, and we made a nice little run.
Overall, the Giants outscored the Golden Eagles by a margin of 20-7 and trailed by just one point, 33-32, heading into the fourth quarter.
However, the Golden Eagles, despite their youth, had remarkable composure in the face of adversity. They allowed Marion to cut into their sizable lead, and yet, they weren’t worried.
They went out in the fourth quarter and played their style of basketball, with resounding success.
“The biggest thing I told them is that [they had] to start defending better, blocking out, rebounding, and limiting them to one shot,” Law said. “I thought we did a much better job of that in the fourth and we were able to flip that to 18-5 our way. In the last four minutes, we ran some [our sets] and executed [them] extremely well.”
Westgate, who only scored one point in the third quarter, scored her final nine points in the fourth quarter, helping the Golden Eagles pull away and secure the victory.
All in all, Westgate played 28 minutes in the contest.
And in those 28 minutes, she was the best player on the court.
“I thought Taylor battled well,” Law said. “With our foul trouble, it threw our normal rotation out the door, and Taylor had to play a ton of minutes. We condition an awful lot in practice [because] you might have to [play] 30 minutes in a game. She did tonight, and she did a good job. I’m just proud of the way she continued to battle. The girl doesn’t get rattled. She doesn’t get high or low on herself, she just keeps competing and playing, and she did a great job down the stretch. [Overall,] it was a good grind it out win.”
As for the Giants, they were unable to keep up their momentum from their third quarter onslaught, managing only five points the rest of the way.
“I felt that we got really tired down the stretch and we didn’t close out the game like we should of,” Jordan said.
However, despite the loss, the Giants proved that they can play with any team on any given night, and most importantly, they showed tremendous effort from the opening tip to the final buzzer.
Kyle finished the game with 12 points and six rebounds, while Horton also finished with 12 points on four-of-eight shooting, including three-of-six from beyond the arc.
“The girls had a lot of heart and a lot of grit, and they showed that – they didn’t quit,” Jordan said. “We are going to keep working hard and getting better every day. We are still really young and a work in progress. I know people see the talent and they want it right now, but this isn’t a microwave oven. This is a process, and it’s going to take time. We are just going to keep working and plugging away.”
