Southland stuffed by Westfield in region semis

Chris Whitaker

AMERICUS — Southland Academy entered the Region 3-AAA tournament as the third seed, and both teams will fight for the third slot to enter the state tournament on Friday.

Both teams had more turnovers than field goals made as Westfield took the sweep.

Erin McLure and Mallory Eubanks led the Lady Hornets to a 53-27 win by scoring 11 and 10 points, respectively.

The Lady Raiders shot 22 percent (10-45) for the game and had 26 turnovers. They were outscored 7-0 to end the first half and trailed 27-12 as they couldn’t make any ground in the second half.

“We didn’t come prepared to play,” said coach Paula McDonald. “We have a lot of problems that plague us, and it’s hard to get the kids to understand my system. It seems like we should have executed a little better. But I don’t think we were there mentally.”

Westfield scored the first six points of the third quarter and led 42-21 at the end of the third.

“We were out-executed,” said McDonald. “What we asked the kids to work on was basically the defense aspects. It’s just frustrating.

“They tore us on the boards, and they’re very scrappy and a really quick team. Their outside shooting was really good, and they get the ball dwon the floor in a fast-break mode in which we didn’t defend.”

Sara Schuster led Southland (14-13) with 10 points, and Sara Cathryn Parker had nine before fouling out in the fourth period. Caitlin Reid had a team-high six rebounds.

A scary moment occurred with 3:37 left in the game when Caitlin Reid collided with a Westfied player on an illegal screen and was hit in the temple of her head. She appeared dizzy and sat to the ground before being helped to the bench.

McDonald said Reid was OK after the game and thinks she’ll be able to play Friday in the consolation game. Tip is 4 p.m. against the Brookwood-Deerfield loser.



Boys

Westfield 51, Southland 32

Wesley Murph scored a game-high 20 points as the Raiders shot 27 percent for the game and were 3 of 23 from behind the arc.

“We didn’t come to play, and there was no intensity at all,” said coach Ernest Scott. “We’ve got some players who played extremely hard, but for the most part, we didn’t come and execute the game plan.”

The Hornets jumped out to an early 16-4 lead on the hot hand from Evan Grantham who had three 3-pointers in the first half.

Southland (8-17) trailed 33-17 at the half as Westfield scored the final six points of the second quarter. By then, the game was in hand.

The Raiders outscored the Hornets 8-3 in the third quarter but never got closer than 11.

Wesley Rust had 12 points for Westfield, and Grantham finished with 11.

Rolie Hancock scored 12 to lead the Raiders, and Andres Charparo had seven.

Southland had 15 turnovers compared to 12 field goals.

“We’ve got to do better if we’re going to advance in the state tournament,” said Scott. “We didn’t shoot well, and it was just a struggle on the offensive end of the floor.”

The Raiders will play the Calvary Christian-Deerfield loser in the consolation at 5:30 p.m. Friday.

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