Western Albemarle’s girls basketball team fell to out-of-district opponent Spotswood for the second time this season to fall to 2-5 on the year. Despite jumping out to an early first quarter lead, a flat second half doomed the Warriors, who lost by a final score of 57-36.
Western Albemarle fought their way to a one-point lead at the end of the first quarter and pulled ahead by as many as five points early in the second. Spotswood, however, was able to remain in the game and grabbed their second lead of the game midway through the second quarter, aided by foul trouble from Western’s dominant post player junior Bridget Shaffrey. After picking up her second foul, Shaffrey was forced to take a seat with five minutes remaining in the half.
“Bridget is one of our better post players – she gives us size, she gives us scoring inside,” said Western Albemarle head coach Kris Wright. “[Her absence] definitely hurts us.”
Shaffrey found herself in foul trouble again in the second half, but, despite her limited playing time, still managed to be Western’s second-leading scorer with eight points.
Spotswood’s Tayler Dodson tied the game on a layup midway through the second quarter and gave her team the lead by converting on a three-point play. Spotswood went into halftime with a five-point lead.
The second half belonged to the visitors from the beginning, as Spotswood exploded on a 10-0 run after the break en route to outscoring Western Albemarle 14-5 in the period.
“In the second half we passed the ball and stopped dribbling. Playing a team that dribbles is not very hard; it’s the easiest team to play against. When we started moving the ball and reversing it, we got a lot more easy baskets,” said Spotswood coach Chris Dodson.
Junior guard Bailey Williams led Spotswood with 21 points on the night, dishing out a handful of assists to her teammates as well. Dodson followed with 17 points, and sophomore Rachel Lindsay added 13 points of her own.
Senior Mady Baker recorded 13 points to lead the Warriors Saturday.
Western Albemarle, who fell to Spotswood by 21 points back on Dec. 8, is optimistic about their upcoming games and the chance to turn their season around.
“We’ve been talking a lot about the energy level required to win games. It’s hard to win games, you’ve got to put in a lot of effort; we’ve been talking about that,” he said. “Today was about making that step as a team – getting better energy wise, getting better effort wise – so that execution can then follow it. It didn’t follow it completely today, but it got better, and we’re trying to continue to do that from game to game.”
The Warriors (2-5) are back in action Monday night at Fort Defiance at 7:30 p.m. Spotswood, who improved to 5-1 with Saturday night’s victory, host Sherando on Tuesday at 6 p.m.
