Westside High School boys’ basketball defeated Baldwin 69-56 to remain undefeated in the region on Friday, Jan. 3.
The Patriots currently have an 8-6 record overall but are 5-0 in the region.
“We’ve played collectively and whole offense and whole defense. It’s hard trying to get the guys to buy into that understanding,” said Westside Coach Jerry Hunter. “We needed the early wakeup call with all of the losses because the guys came in intoxicated off the success of the program. I always tell them this is a three-time championship program, not a three-time championship team.”
Baldwin began the game with an early 4-3 lead before Westside went on a 9-0 run, pushing ahead 12-4.
The Braves battled back and tied the game at 17-17, but the Patriots went on another 11-point run and led 31-26 at the half.
Senior guard Jarious Adkinson returned after being out with injury to start the season and led the first half with 10 points. along with junior teammate Dontrell Jackson.
Westside extended their lead to 43-30 after two steals and four points by Jackson, followed by 3-pointers from Jayden Adkinson and Aldrion Jones. The Patriots outscored the Braves 22-12 in the third quarter.
Baldwin cut the lead to single digits after forcing a couple turnovers, down 62-53. A late dunk by Jones and free throw conversions from Westside led the Patriots to the 69-56 win late.
Adkinson led the Patriots with 18 points, followed by Jackson and Jones with 17 each. Jackson currently leads the entire 3A in scoring with 20.6 points per game.
“Coming off the bench last year was the most important thing for him,” Hunter said about Jackson. “Most kids don’t have that experience of coming off the bench until they get to college. He had the opportunity to that because we were so talented last year. So now we are trying to get him into the leadership role of facilitating. Scoring has not been a problem, but shot selection. He wants to put on a show, but you got to get your guys involved and you put on a show like that. We are just trying to develop him as a point guard and by next year he will be a solid point guard and he will go on to play college basketball for somebody.”
Despite the win, Hunter said his players still needed to improve their maturity level and control their emotions.
“We try to teach emotional intelligence and that has been a foundation to our program,” Hunter said. “We’re doing it with this group here, but It is taking us some losses to understand it.”
Westside will face off in another region game at Hephzibah on Saturday, Jan. 4 at 3:30 p.m. Baldwin will battle in another region matchup against Howard also Saturday.
Westside is currently tied for first place in the region and will play Cross Creek to see who is the top team in the region on Saturday, Jan. 11.
“We respect them, and they have done a great job over there. We want our guys to stay out of the crowd because when the adrenaline starts flowing, decision making becomes unpredictable, but it is going to be a good game,” Hunter said. “They are more seasoned team because they got a lot of there guys back, so we go see what were made of. At the same time while we see what were made of, we will see what some other teams are made of as well as far as 3A.”
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.
