Western Albemarle’s girls basketball’s Eleri Hayden knew something was going right for the Warriors from the opening tip.
“We just kind of clicked, we were really able to move the zone and find open people,” Hayden said. “Everything just worked out.”
Hayden caught fire against Covenant on Tuesday in the consolation game of the Western tip-off tournament and Tuesday she picked up where she left off, scoring 16 points and pulling down seven rebounds, with 10 of those points coming in the first quarter as Western Albemarle cruised to a 46-21 win over Fluvanna County in the Warriors’ Jefferson District opener.
“She’s obviously having a really good start to her senior season but she’s put in a lot of work so you would expect her to have a good start,” said Western coach Kris Wright.
Hayden’s work in the post on the offensive end has been a big lift for Western as they’ve won two straight to get to .500 on the season after an 0-2 start. It also didn’t hurt Tuesday that the Warriors’ defense was locked in from the start. Mady Starsia’s four steals led a sterling effort on that end of the floor.
“We did a really good job of keeping our arms wide,” Hayden said. “The past few games we’ve gotten a lot of fouls reaching in and we did a lot better job of just staying wide.”
That’s not an easy task against Fluvanna, a squad that can create some matchup problems for the Warriors off the dribble.
“The key to the game tonight was can you play defense, particularly can you play individual defense against a group that’s very aggressive, that gets to the hole really well,” Wright said. “It’s going to require some good individual defense and some good help defense and I thought we executed that key very well.”
The Flucos, meanwhile are searching for their identity a little still as they look to replace all-district pick Katie Stutz who did a little bit of everything for Fluvanna last season. Fluvanna’s young roster rushed at times against the Warriors’ stingy defense and struggled to score with just four points in the first quarter, pushing them into a 12-4 hole out of the gate.
“They did a fantastic job defensively and we could not find a way to get into our offense,” said Fluvanna coach Chad White. “They just got into us and our played didn’t know what to do with it.”
With nobody reaching double figures in points and freshman Nevaeh Ivory’s six points leading the Fluvanna offense, the Flucos have to find some offense.
“I think it’s … inexperience, but Western did a really good job,” White said. “We’ll go back to the drawing board and fix it in practice.”
Western’s sophomore point guard Elizabeth Coffman finished with nine points and four assists while Deja Newton-Grant finished with eight rebounds.
The Warriors will take on Albemarle in a rivalry clash Friday night at 6 p.m. in Crozet while the Flucos travel to take on Louisa County the same night.
