The old adage goes that no matter what one’s role might be — the star of the team or a role player — one has to be ready for the number on the front and back of the jersey to be called at any given point.
West freshman forward Maddie Lawless certainly was ready from the opening tip in a nonconference matchup against Oak Hill Friday evening.
In just her fourth varsity contest, Lawless came off the bench to supply 10 first-quarter points — helping the Lady Senators jump out to a 12-0 lead over the game’s first 7:13.
Junior guard Brayleigh Pistole then added 10 of her 15 tallies in the second half of play — and the Lady Senators ripped off each of the contest’s final 29 points in route to a convincing 48-8 win over the Lady Oaks Monday evening in a game that was held at Portsmouth West High School.
The key word that West first-year head coach Doran Martin continues to harp on to his talented, and high-upside West team? Relentlessness — which the Lady Senators showed in the second half in holding Oak Hill without a bucket over the final 16 minutes of Monday’s victory, while forcing a total of 34 turnovers in the game to boot.
“We’re just trying to be relentless with everything that we do,” Martin said. “We look at each opponent and say, ‘What are our goals?’ The end result is that you’ve got to do the same thing every single night. In the first half, we came out a little flat, but before we took the floor in the second half, we talked about, ‘What are our goals? How many high-fives are you giving out? Are you all actually having fun out there?’ They came out in the second half, had a little bit more fun, and we saw the results of that.”
“Over those first two quarters, we knew that we weren’t playing well,” Pistole said. “We weren’t playing defense like we were capable of. We weren’t getting the shots that we wanted. Then, when we were, we weren’t making them. When we got to the locker room, we came together and talked it out, and we fixed those things. We just enjoy communicating and playing alongside each other. We just enjoy being beside each other all the time, going out there and having fun, trusting each other and finding the open person.”
From the get-go, Lawless was ready.
Coming into the game with about six minutes remaining in the opening quarter, Lawless used her low-post positioning and smarts to cause problems for the Oak Hill frontline throughout her time in the game.
In a span of just over five minutes, Lawless turned the scoreless tie into a 12-0 lead for West by scoring 10 points during the stretch — eight of which came off of offensive rebounds and putbacks as the Lady Senators took a 12-0 lead with 47 seconds to play in the opening quarter, and led 12-3 after the first frame following a banked-in three by Oak Hill’s Alyssa Whitt.
“I think reading the shots off of the person shooting, getting in the proper position, and trusting your teammates is huge,” Lawless said of her first quarter production. “You have to trust your teammates.”
“We have great chemistry so it really makes it easy,” Lawless continued. “Most of the time, I don’t worry about it because I believe the shots are going in.”
“All summer, she (Lawless) has been working really, really well on offense and rebounds the ball very, very well,” Martin said. “She hit a big shot for us against North Adams to put us up by one with less than 30 seconds to go, and is doing a really good job for us. I’m really proud of the way that she has come in and battled every single day. She’s really coachable, too.”
While West led by a modest 19-8 gap at the halftime break, the Lady Senators’ defensive pressure, which caused 18 first-half turnovers alone, was simply a precursor of what was to come in the third quarter of play.
The pressure, along with West’s end-to-end speed and depth, proved to be simply too much for Oak Hill to hold back as the Lady Senators scored 23 third-quarter points while shutting the Lady Oaks completely off of the scoreboard.
In posting its 23-point output, West hit four different threes and had five different players score in the quarter, with Pistole posting all 10 of her second half points in the third quarter to head the charge. Hailey Carver’s ball pressure at the top of the defense along with Pistole, and Carver’s four assists in the third quarter, allowed the Lady Senators to take a 42-8 lead after three quarters gone in the game.
“What Hailey does for our team picking up the ball for us, is tremendous,” Martin said. “Sometimes she scores for us and sometimes she doesn’t as we have a balanced team who will have a different hot hand every night, but she always brings the defensive intensity for us. Whenever I subbed her out and put Brayleigh in there, she kept it up, too. That’s the thing. If we can make it hard on you to get into your offense, we’re in good shape. Those girls bring it every single day, and they play hard. I’d love to have 15 girls that play with their effort.”
“In practice, we mix up teams all the time,” Pistole said. “It’s honestly just getting reps. We mix in the varsity and JV together, and it just makes each of us better. We know that when we sub in, we’ll get it done because we practice hard all the time and we just trust in each other.”
“We have a good variety on our team,” Lawless said. “We have good players all down the line from our guards to forwards to centers, and we can all rely on each other to do our jobs.”
Monday’s win pushed West to a 3-1 start with its only loss to a Division IV Warren squad that is also 3-1. The Lady Senators will have nonconference contests against Eastern Pike (Thursday) and Symmes Valley (Monday, Dec. 8 at Symmes Valley) before hosting its SOC III opener against Valley on the West Side Monday, Dec. 15. West didn’t start a single senior in its lineup Monday evening and looks like a group that could have yet another shot at a postseason run in its back pocket.
“Kayla Throckmorton and Rileigh Miller are our two seniors — great kids who do a lot for our program,” Martin said. “Both are great kids who are unselfish, and it really made me happy to see Rileigh get a bucket tonight. They don’t complain, have a good time and keep the team in a light mood. I’m really happy with them. All of our starters come back, and if Maddie (Lawless) keeps going on that upward trajectory, the future’s bright at Portsmouth West.”