The Westside High School boys’ basketball team defeated Butler 54-44 to give the Bulldogs their first region loss of the season on Friday, Jan 12.
Butler was 4-0 in the region before Friday night but moves to 4-1. Westside jumped ahead of Butler with a record 5-1 in the region. Westside Coach Jerry Hunter says he saw a lot of growth in his team.
“Bobby Blackwell was key for us tonight,” Hunter said. “What we’re trying to do now is teach the guys how to win games, value each possession, get to the free throw line to stretch the lead and then rebound. We stepped up. Butler is a good team, so we defended well tonight.”
The game between the two region foes was tight early, but the Patriots went on a run late in the second quarter to push out to a 30-24 first half lead.
Butler continued to get to the free-throw-line and battled before tying the game 35-35 late in the third quarter.
The Bulldogs began the fourth quarter with the lead before the Patriots went on an 11-0 run to seal their victory.
Dontrell Jackson was one player who came up big in the fourth quarter by forcing a couple of turnovers and scoring off the mistakes by Butler. And Lavonta Ivery led the Patriots scoring with 17 points for the game.
“Jackson is the first guy off the bench, (Xavier) Goss played well for us to, but Jackson gives us that perimeter defense pressure,” Hunter said. “Helping the helper tonight was key in terms of help defense.”
Earlier this season, Westside lost to Butler 56-49, and Hunter said he happy to see his to close out Friday’s game.
“Finishing has been an issue with us this year, but that is what happens when you have a new team,” he said. “We have had the lead in two of the games we lost. We just didn’t understand how to finish. They want to finish from the 3-point-line, we are going to have to finish it from the free-throw-line.”
Westside now is in second place region behind the Thomson Bulldogs, who are 12-0 overall and 4-0 in the region.
The Patriots will look to continue their momentum at home against Laney in their next game on Tuesday, Jan. 16.
Christopher Rickerson, an Augusta University graduate, has covered area sports for Augusta University, The Augusta Press and Augusta Good News. Subscribe to the Augusta Good News newsletter here.
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