Spring Valley girls ride defense to victory over Westside

The defending 4A champion Spring Valley girls got off to a slow start Friday against Westside.

Considering its defense played lights out for nearly 10 minutes, there wasn’t much concern on the Vikings bench.

Spring Valley limited the Rams to just three free throws over that time, and the offense got going en route to a 56-40 victory in the second round of the Class 4A playoffs.

“I was pleased,” Spring Valley coach Anne Long said. “I thought the perimeter shooting was good, (Shantay) Taylor did a good job inside. Christian (Hithe) was off to a slow start, but some of the other players helped her.”

Spring Valley (24-2) heads to Dorman on Monday to take on the Cavaliers, 45-43 winners over T.L. Hanna.

Hithe went scoreless in the first quarter, but the senior guard quickly found her stroke. She sank three 3-pointers and led all scorers with 22 points.

“The first quarter, we couldn’t make a basket,” Hithe said. “Toward the end of the first quarter, we started playing the Spring Valley way, and toward the end of the first half, I looked up at the scoreboard and we were up by 20. I thought ‘OK, we’re rolling now.’”

She and Taylor, who had 14 points, led the way for the Vikings, but it took a little bit to get into an offensive rhythm.

Spring Valley scored just seven points over the first 5:40 of the game – to Westside’s one foul shot from Malezia Acker. The Vikings’ offense kicked in with just over two minutes left in the first quarter, going on a 9-2 run to the buzzer.

Up 16-3 to start the second, Spring Valley outscored the Rams 19-4 to take a 35-7 lead by the 3-minute mark of the second.

Down 37-13 at the half, Westside closed the margin during the next two quarters, but never threatened.

“We were able to play end-to-end in the first half,” Long said. “I wanted to get our press going in the second half, but we’ve got a couple of things we need to tweak on that. So, we got more into a half-court game in the second half and didn’t score as much.”

Alexis Scott led the Rams (18-8) with 13 points and 10 rebounds. Britney Martinez had 12 points.

Long said she’s got film on Dorman and will know how to attack the Cavaliers by Monday. The Vikings also should be ready to press by then.

“We’ve still got some things we need to work on,” Long said. “We’re a little bit rusty, a little bit out of our character. We showed that in the second half, but we’ll get it back.”

This story was originally published February 19, 2016 at 10:49 PM with the headline "Spring Valley girls ride defense to victory over Westside."