When they’re on, Western Albemarle’s Ellen Shaffrey and Kelsey Swanson are a difficult one-two punch to control, much less stop.
Saturday night it took Western’s junior tandem a little while to get going when Monticello came out in a zone, but the Warriors kicked things into gear in the second quarter to pull away for a 59-43 victory over the Mustangs in the Jefferson District quarterfinals.
“Both of those girls were good offensively tonight and that allowed us to be a lot more comfortable than it could’ve been,” said Western coach Kris Wright. “.”
Swanson poured in 19 points and dished out five assists in addition to coming up with a block. Shaffrey put together a 17-point, 16-rebound performance while also snagging a pair of steals. Shaffrey scored in effective, quick spurts, knocking in two or three baskets on consecutive possessions to halt Monticello’s advance during several stretches. When a Bridgett Holleran 3-pointer cut the lead to just seven in the third quarter, Shaffrey hit two buckets sandwiched around a Swanson basket to extend Western’s lead back to 11.
“Those kind of things really break down the other team and that starts freeing other people up,” Wright said.
Western’s Virginia Carew finished with seven points and four rebounds, while Erin Steven knocked in seven points. Lexy Eckerle had four points and four blocks. Raven Ward had six boards and four blocks to go with her four points.
Monticello didn’t go quietly though behind a solid offensive effort by Lisa Marshall who, along with Erin Rothenberg, was key to an early Monticello lead in the second quarter. Rothenberg hit a pair of solid back-to-back buckets to Marshall finished with 10 points, eight of them in the first half.
“Lisa continued to work through the last game of her senior on expanding and being a more diverse offensive player,” said Monticello coach Mike Mountjoy. “She took the ball to the hole a little bit, a couple of one dribble moves and had some really good looks.”
But the Monticello offense sputtered after the early strong showing and Western built an eight-point lead by the break. Carla Brooks played strong defense in the second half and gave the Mustangs a pop with a team-high 12 points, but Monticello couldn’t string together enough baskets to slice into what had become a double digit Western lead.
“Her job rebounding was extraordinary,” Mountjoy said. “She absolutely battled like a warrior tonight, one of the things we’ve been able to count on is that she’s going to play like a warrior every night.”
Monticello struggled to match Western’s height throughout the contest. With few traditional post players in the program, Shaffrey, in particular, creates matchup problems for the Mustangs.
Western advances to take on Orange County in Tuesday’s semifinals.
