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Senior Step-Up: Western’s veteran front court helps hold off Covenant

By Drew Goodman / Scrimmageplaycva.com contributor

 

When early season jitters kick in and things aren’t going as smoothly as they have been in practice, coaches often seek help from their senior leaders to close out tight games.

 

Thankfully for Western Albemarle girls’ basketball head coach, Kris Wright, he has two of those veteran stalwarts, in Sydney Sherman and Caity Driver.

 

Wrights’ Warriors were pushed to the limit by local foe Covenant on Thursday night, but Sherman and Driver made some clutch free throws and came up with a number of big rebounds when their team needed it most. The two senior post players scored all but two of Western’s points in the fourth quarter, as the Warriors fought off a pesky TCS squad for a 44-37 triumph in Crozet.

 

Sherman led all scorers with 17 points, while Driver chipped in 12, including going 4-for-5 from the charity stripe in the final minute to help slam the door on the Eagles.

 

“[Driver and Sherman] started I think every game last year. They’re senior captains this year, and we expect them to step forward in big games and close situations,” Wright said. “This was a close game down the stretch tonight, and both delivered when we needed them to down the stretch to get a win on the board.”

 

Sherman provided the offensive spark late when her team had hit a dry spell, tallying seven of her 17 points in the fourth quarter. 

 

Covenant pulled to within a bucket at 37-35 in the final minutes for the first time since it was 2-0, but the Eagles had no answer for Sherman inside when it counted. Sherman finally stopped the TCS run with a big bucket inside the paint for Western’s first field goal in several minutes.

 

The Eagles responded with a free throw by Aida Tiouririne, but Sherman countered with a foul shot of her own, and Covenant never pulled to within one possession again.

 

Driver then closed the game by sinking two free throws twice. She missed the front-end-of one-and-one, but managed to get her own rebound to set up another attempt from the line.

 

Sherman and Driver’s size bothered the Eagles all night, both late and in the in the first half. The senior duo scored 12 of Western’s first 16 points to help Eagles to a 16-2 lead to start the contest.

 

“That’s one of the things that we always struggle with- boxing out some the bigger and stronger players that we face sometimes being a little bit of smaller team,” Covenant head coach Austin Crocker said. “Being able to play a team like [Western] and kind of get that experience early is only going to help us later on.”

 

Covenant (1-2) fell behind 16-2 and didn’t score its second field goal until the midway point of the second quarter, but the Eagles would not go away quietly.

 

The Eagles made a run late in the first half, another in the third quarter, and one more in the final minutes, to keep the Warriors on their toes.

 

Point guard Ella Dalton was the focal point of the Western defense, which gave fellow senior Claire Marie Colley a bevy of open looks from the outside.

 

After missing her first five attempts from the field, Colley finally got one to drop for Covenant’s final bucket of the first half. The senior added four more treys to lead the Eagles with 15 points, and helped spark her teams final comeback attempt of the night. Western Albemarle led by 11 entering the fourth quarter, but Colley opened the frame with an off-balance triple to pull the Eagles to within single digits.

 

Trailing by seven, Dalton buried her fifth and final three-pointer of the night, which made the score 37-33. A put-back by Tiouririne brought the Eagles to within two before Sherman and Driver closed out the contest from the line.

 

“I just think that when we play with energy and effort, we’re a different team,” Crocker said. “We started out slow, shots weren’t falling, but I continued to tell them to ‘stick with it.’ They just had to believe in each other and believe that they can get the job done. When they do that, special things start to happen.”

 

Covenant trimmed Western’s lead to just five in the third quarter, which prompted Wright to send energetic junior Ellie Smartt to the floor for the first time.

 

Smartt responded with a hard drive to the paint, earning her two free throws, which she made. Then, on Western’s next possession, the junior finished off her layup attempt with a big bucket that brought the home bench to their feet. Smartt later found a streaking Sherman for an assist inside the paint to cap an 8-0 run, and stake Western to a 31-18 lead just before the fourth quarter.

 

“[Smartt] was big- we turned to her to try to get a spark, both, and she did that, both defensively and offensively,” Wright said. “She came through in a really big moment because we were getting a little shaky and needed something to happen.”

 

Western Albemarle (1-0) will take on Jefferson Forest on Saturday, while Covenant will host Regents on December 7 as well.

 

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