Westside girls keep rolling, defeat Southwest 68-45

With head coach Candice Roberson away to tend to her duties as the school’s athletic director, the Westside girls basketball team faced off against Southwest with assistant coach William Gordon at the helm.

By the time the final horn sounded, it was clear that Westside’s well-oiled machine did not miss a beat with their head coach absent.

“Well, luckily Coach Roberson has a pretty incredible program running here. All I had to do was come in and put my foot on the gas a little tonight,” Gordon said.

The Seminoles kept things rolling against the cross-town rival Patriots, defeating Southwest 68-45 in South Macon to move to 5-1 on the season and get a crucial win.

Westside is currently ranked No. 6 in Class 2A by Georgia basketball outlet Sandy’s Spiel, and the Seminoles showed their strength and well-rounded roster with the 23-point win. 

Taylor Talton netted 19 points. Star sophomore Dominique Billue finished with 17 points. Gordon was pleased with the team’s ability to bounce back from a slow start, as Southwest kept things close early.

“It’s always gonna be fun stepping in. I’m happy for the girls. We’re trying to do something special. You saw we had some little lapses out there,” Gordon said. “I thought it was real important for us to come out at halftime with a little purpose. Even they said it, they said, ‘Coach, we’re dead. We got no energy.’

“Third quarter we popped ‘em a little bit, then we were able to just finish it off from there.”

That third quarter saw the Seminoles score 21 points, many of them in the first few minutes of the period to extend their lead in impressive fashion. Gordon lauded some of his players including Aniya Barber and Zylea Dinkins for being able to fuel the scoring without necessarily pouring in points.

“Aniya Barber came in and gave us huge minutes when some other players got in foul trouble, and Zylea really helped Taylor get off-ball for us,” Gordon said. “This is the first time Taylor has really gotten off-ball and it made a huge difference for us.”

The shift in the third quarter was too much for Southwest to recover from, though the Patriots did well to manage the rest of the game and fight hard to keep the deficit from growing larger.

“They played really well. We looked a little lost at times, but in the end they picked the fight up,” Southwest head coach Ron Hill said. “We gotta understand that we’re young. I was very pleased with the way they finished the game. They played aggressively.”

The Patriots looked much-improved despite the loss, which dropped them to 3-3 on the season. The record shows how Southwest has grown since last season, which they finished with a 1-18 record.

The Patriots had decent ball movement early and created looks inside despite Westside netting an early 6-point lead. It was converting on those good looks that quickly became the key issue for Southwest. Westside also picked the Patriots’ pockets several times on fast breaks and tended to score points on the other end as a result.

“Transition from offense to defense, making layups, making free throws,” Hill said of his team’s mistakes. “We need to have a whole practice of just doing those things. We’re just learning how to play hard for a full four quarters. They played hard, there’s just things to work on.”

Southwest stayed in it early despite its shooting woes, mostly because of timely makes to break up Westside runs and the Seminoles staying cool from the field themselves. The Patriots came within 4 at one point in the second quarter, and it was only a 30-21 Westside lead at the break.

Hill shouted out Shakiya Dean and Delayia Jones as key contributors, the latter of whom was a key defender during the first half that kept Westside’s scorers in check. Dean led the Patriots with 17 points.

The Seminoles found their groove in that aforementioned third quarter, though, and kept the pressure on Southwest to finish strong with 17 in the fourth quarter as well. All told, Westside outscored the rival Patriots 38-24 in the second half to polish off their fifth win of the year.

“We’re playing the classic Macon schools this week with Southwest today, Central on Wednesday and then Northeast on Friday,” Gordon said of the Seminoles’ schedule against traditional rivals. “These games are always fun, and hopefully this gets us on track for Central. They traditionally give us some trouble.”

Hill agreed about the fun of playing against fellow Macon schools, even if the Seminoles and Patriots play in different regions and different classifications.

“A lot of these girls are friends off the court, so it’s really fun to watch them interact. They wanna talk on the phone after the game, talk about who did this, brag if they won,” Hill said. “It’s a rivalry game, but I saw nothing but good ball playing out there tonight. I just think playing against your friend is always enjoyable.”

Westside has another road game against Central on Wednesday at 6 p.m., while Southwest travels to Dodge County on Tuesday before a week off until Dec. 23.