Westmont rolls past Timothy Christian
Things looked pretty good for Timothy Christian's girls basketball team near the end of the second quarter Tuesday night at Westmont.
The Trojans used an 8-1 spurt to build a 10-point advantage over Westmont with 2:27 remaining before halftime and looked as if they might earn their fifth victory of the season on the road.
Things went south quickly thereafter.
The Sentinels answered Timothy Christian's 8-1 run with an 11-0 streak of their own, seizing a 23-22 halftime lead. Westmont kept the momentum going throughout the second half, dominating the Trojans (4-5) inside the paint en route to a 52-35 nonconference victory in Westmont.
Once the Sentinels (9-2) found their outside shooting touch, the lane opened up for junior center Sara Sternard. The 6-foot-2 Sternard scored 16 of her game-high 23 points in the second half, single-handedly outscoring the entire Timothy Christian squad over the final two quarters.
"We've been watching her for the past two years develop as a player, and we knew she was a load," Trojans coach Ryan DeKoekkoek said. "We had a couple of things going on in the game plan, and one of them was to do a better job fronting the post, and we did a horrible job with that - especially in the second half.
"We just gave her point blank after point blank."
Sternard's 10 third-quarter points fueled a 19-2 Westmont run to close out the quarter. A pair of Sternard layups with 1:20 in the period pushed the Sentinels' lead to 38-29. A Catherine Zapinski 3-pointer put Westmont ahead by 12 points before a Stephanie Wolff 3 with two seconds left in the quarter increased the lead to 15.
Six more Sternard points in the fourth capped a 27-4 streak, giving the Sentinels a 52-31 advantage with 1:48 to play and more than ruining Timothy Christian's solid start.
"They were doing so much sagging on our big people, but when we got a couple of scores going - they couldn't sag as much," Westmont coach Mike McCord said. "This is by far Sara's best game.
"We've been seeing it steadily progressing. She's starting to get into the motion a little better."
Sternard fell one rebound shy of a double-double, as she continues to integrate herself into basketball after a lengthy volleyball season.
"I felt like I played really well tonight and I hope it gets better," she said. "I felt like it was a really good team effort in the second half."