WBA soars to win over Marquand-Zion

A day removed from being handed their first defeat, at home no less, to a formidable Greenville squad, the Westwood Baptist Academy Eagles made sure their homecoming night would be a complete reversal.

On Friday, the Eagles (7-1) got back on the winning track as they raced out to a big lead in front of a packed house of supportive fans and cruised to a 73-37 win on one of the bigger nights of the school year for their students.

Leading the way for the Eagles were James Hawley (21 points) and the trio of Jeffrey Van Dover, Joel Hanks and Ben Jones, who all scored 11 apiece.

“We were confident in our play and not taking anything for granted,” Van Dover said. “We knew we could run a little bit on a team like this and take it to the basket. Our shots were a little off from deep, but we kept pushing it to the basket and that helped us.

“We were trying to get out and prove we can still play, but we were a little bit tired from (Thursday night). We wanted to get that taste out of our mouth. We learned to take care of the ball better under pressure and to make better decisions and control yourself.”

WBA head coach Josh Hawley was pleased with the strong start to the game.

“It’s always good to get off to a good start and it helps set the tone for the game,” Coach Hawley said. “We wanted to play fast and that’s how we started it and maintained it the whole game.

“We have a couple of big guys and they had some tall guys, but not a whole lot of size. We were able to control the boards and I was definitely pleased with that.”

The Eagles used an opportunistic defense to get put in transition for some easy baskets right out of the gate and a superior ability to control the boards helped them to a 14-0 lead before the Tigers broke through.

The onslaught didn’t end there was the Eagle continued to attack the Marquand defense and ultimately finished the first quarter up 24-5.

The first few minutes of the second quarter were a bit stagnant got ways, but a triple by James Hawley pushed the Eagles up by 33-11 as the WBA fans continued to revel.

The Eagle would cruise into the halftime break up 39-15.

The second half was more of the same although the third quarter was about both offenses getting hot as more points cranked up the scoreboard yet the Tigers couldn’t make a dent on the Eagles superiority.

They confirmed their dominance this night when Alex Carson poured in a three as the quarter expired for a 65-29 lead and the mercy clock was set to full throttle.

Next up are some key matchups next week beginning with Bismarck on Tuesday.

“We just want to keep it going and we have some tough competition next week,” Coach Hawley said. “We are just going to play our hardest like we did tonight. (The public school matchups) are good for us and helps us step our game up.”