4th-quarter run lifts Westwood boys past Ridge View

Westwood was looking for any spark it could find Friday night in a showdown with Ridge View with first place in Region 3-4A hanging in the balance.

The RedHawks trailed by nine points early in the fourth quarter and were in a stretch where they didn’t score for more than four minutes. But thanks to four 3-pointers in the final five minutes, Westwood rallied for a 60-57 victory.

“Obviously, knocking down 3s helps,” Westwood coach Jeff DiBattisto said. “We were trading baskets for a while, and we can’t do that against a team as good as Ridge View. We got a couple stops to get the momentum going.”

The win allows Westwood (13-5, 5-0) to finish the first half of the region in the driver’s seat. But DiBattisto understands there is plenty of basketball left to be played.

“I’m happy for our guys, but I just told the guys we have to go all the way back through that region. We will get everybody’s best shot. It’s good to be 5-0 but we still have a lot of work to do,” he said.

“We have guys that will play college ball, but we kind of rally them with the lunch pail mentality. We will continue to be the underdog. That is fine with us.”

That workman-like effort allowed Westwood to close the game on a 20-8 run. Kendall Wormack connected on two 3s, Jalen Watson and Tayjay Dunlap each hit a 3-pointer and Russell Jones scored the final four points to seal the victory.

Jones, who finished with 16 points, gave the RedHawks the lead for good when he stripped the ball away under the Ridge View basket and raced the length of the court to score on a layup with 1:46 remaining. After a miss, he hit two free throws with 30 seconds remaining to seal it.

The Blazers had a final chance to tie it at the buzzer but a deep 3-pointer from the wing came up short.

“Coach told us we had to step it up,” Jones said. “We came together as a team and played hard. No matter how much we’re down, we’re going to keep pushing and we know we’re going to come out victorious.”

Dunlap matched Jones with 16 points, and Wormack chipped in with 15. Westwood made 10 3-pointers, with those three combining to make eight, all in the decisive fourth-quarter run.

“Those were huge for us to get the momentum back,” Jones said. “We knock those shots down in practice, so it was just a matter of knocking them down in the game.”

DiBattisto heaped praise on the play of Jones. The 5-8 junior played the entire 32 minutes and was key to keeping things together when it could have gotten away.

“If he’s not the most coachable kid I ever had, he’s right up there. He does it all and at his size, it’s unbelievable,” he said.

Ridge View (11-7) was led by Walyn Napper with 19 points but he was held scoreless in the fourth quarter. Crosby Harris-James added 12 and Malcolm Wilson recorded 10 blocks.

This story was originally published January 19, 2018 at 11:01 PM with the headline "4th-quarter run lifts Westwood boys past Ridge View."