Round Rock Westwood used its decisive height advantage to fight off a pesky but overmatched Belton team for a 49-41 victory in a Class 5A girls bi-district playoff at Southwestern University’s Robertson Center on Tuesday night.
The Lady Tigers, who never had a player on the floor over 6-feet, had their season capped with an 18-12 mark. The Lady Warriors, who start a pair of 6-2 posts, improved to 25-8 and advanced to face Spring Westfield (No. 3 in Texas Association of Basketball Coaches poll) in this weekend’s area round.
“We knew the key coming in was going to be how well they defended our guards and how well we defended their posts,” Belton coach Randy Bell said. “The posts won out tonight.”
The game was tight until the final few minutes, but Belton never had an answer for the mismatch in the paint.
Anchored by senior post Mary Farman, who finished with a team-high 16 points, Westwood held a commanding 41-28 edge in rebounds, with 16 of the Lady Warriors’ boards coming on the offensive glass.
“There was nothing we could do under there. We just couldn’t match-up with their big girls,” Bell said of the rebounding differential. “They got way too many offensive rebounds, but we didn’t have any way to overcome them.”
Despite the problems on the boards, Belton trailed by only six points entering the fourth quarter and mounted one final push to start the period.
Karly Bridgers made three of four free-throw attempts on back-to-back trips, and when Kaleigh San Miguel got a putback off Bridgers’ only miss, the Lady Tigers had cut the deficit to 36-35 with 6:56 left to play.
But that’s where the rally came to an end due to Westwood’s intensified defensive pressure on the perimeter and Belton’s struggles from the stripe.
After San Miguel’s bucket, the Lady Tigers held the Lady Warriors to only four points over the next five and a half minutes but managed only one point of their own.
For its 11 possessions during the stretch, Belton went 0-for-4 from the field, 1-for-7 from the line and committed three turnovers.
“We went back to our diamond-and-one defense where we played zone on everybody except (Blair) Heitmiller,” Westwood coach Keith Smith said of his squad’s defensive effort in the fourth quarter. “We lucked out with their other girls missing some shots and then we were able to get the rebounds.”
Belton’s scoreless stretch finally stretch finally ended when Jessica Wills, who finished with a team-high 16 points, scored on a layup with 31 seconds remaining to cut the margin to 44-38. It’s as close as the Lady Tigers would get.
“We couldn’t get to the free-throw line for the first three quarters,” Bell said. “Then when we did, we couldn’t make enough of them.”
The Lady Warriors’ diamond-and-one was effective most of the night, as Heitmiller drained a 3-pointer late in the first quarter but had only two free throws to show after that and finished with five points.
And with their sharpest shooter under cuffs, the Lady Tigers had trouble finding offensive production.
“They put pressure on our guards and forced us to penetrate,” Bell said. “But then when you do that you run into their big posts. We tried to pull up and hit the mid-range jumpers, and we were able to for a while. I thought our kids played extremely hard, but it all came down to the fact that we didn’t have an answer for their size.”
Belton held an 8-6 lead after the first quarter, but was outscored 13-7 in the second period and trailed 19-15 at halftime.
Then Farman took over in the third quarter, scoring nine of her 16 points to build Westwood’s lead to 36-30 heading into the fourth.
