By Jeremy McDonald
jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– Entering the third quarter, the West Salem Girls Basketball team turned to their strength in defense in the hopes to get some separation between themselves and Ida B. Wells Tuesday night at West Salem High School.
The Guardians weren’t going to back-down as they brought the intensity and pressure themselves to start the game. They challenged West Salem to play disciplined, something that the Titans did to do more consistently there starting in the third quarter as they began to match that intensity and pressure that their PDX counterparts were throwing their way.
But it wasn’t until the final 3:36 of the quarter when the hard work of playing that sound defense had paid off.
Faced with a 36-34 deficit and working through some minor foul trouble trying to find their footing in the physical game, West Salem’s defense started to get stops. From those stops, they converted them into points. And by the end of the third quarter, the Titans were up 47-37.That run, which entered the fourth quarter at 13-1, continued. It topped out at 22-1, with West Salem leading 56-37, before the run came to an end in what became a 56-42 West Salem victory.
“I think defensively, adding more ball pressure to the point guard helped a lot. She was getting tired towards the end and stronger passes,” said Chica Casas. “We got some young people on the team, but I think staying disciplined and focusing a lot on defense. If we can focus on that, defense creates offense and I think it’ll help us in the long run.”
Casas and Emma Zuniga each led the Titans with 12 points each. Casas scored eight of her 12 points and Samantha Griffin scored six of her ten points in the third quarter to help get the run going from the offensive side of the ball. Lily Griffin also scored 11 points in the win for West Salem.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
