By
Jacob Norling
November 6, 2021
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) The new-look Warriors continued to make a good impression on Saturday night, as Westmont (3-0) defeated Westcliff (0-1) 87-55 for their third-straight win. Westmont held the visitors to a 32.8% clip from the field, while allowing only a single 3-pointer in 18 attempts.
"We were able to get stops in man-to-man," said Westmont head coach
Landon Boucher, "but we switched to a zone and we were able to find a lot of success with it. Offensively, we were just looking to make each other better, especially in the second half. We went from getting decent shots in the first half, to getting great shots in the second."
In the first half, a beautiful pass from
Tyler Austin to
Jalen Townsell led to a layup in transition and capped off a 9-2 run with 10:34 remaining in the period. At that point, the Warriors' lead was stretched out to double-digits at 23-12 for the first time all night.
Coming off a 26 point performance,
Jared Brown was off to a quick start again as he recorded seven points while going three of four from the field through the first ten minutes.
With 3:46 left in the half, Westmont led 34-22 as
Ajay Singh and
Nate Meithof began to arrive offensively, but a late-run for Westcliff cut the deficit to 36-30 at the end of the period.
A big improvement from the previous evening was in the turnover department, where Westmont had just three at half compared to 11 a night ago. Westcliff had out-rebounded the home-Warriors 24-22 at half, but the road team's inability to sink a 3-pointer (0-6) kept Westmont in the lead at halftime.
A 3-pointer from
Kyler Warren followed by an easy layup for Warren immediately built Westmont's lead back to double-digits in the first 90 seconds of the second half. With 16:32 remaining, Westcliff was forced to call timeout after Meithof repeated the same pattern as Warren two minutes prior.
With 13:00 left on the clock, Westmont transferred the hot hand to Singh, who also converted a layup and a 3-pointer in consecutive possessions to push the lead to 54-39.
"The guys collectively decided to move to the ball," observed Boucher. "Nate had four assists in the second half, and because of that he was able to score more because people were getting it back to him after dishing it out. Moving the ball opens so much on offense."
Westmont kept their foot on the gas going into a media timeout, as a layup from Townsell followed by a thunderous dunk from Meithof stretched the lead to 58-41 with 11:49 left to play.
The next media timeout came with 7:35 left in the period, after Singh, Townsell, and Brown sank a trio of 3-pointers to stretch Westmont's lead to 66-46.
Five minutes later, back-to-back threes from Townsell and Meithof made it 79-54 and two minutes after that, Westmont officially won the contest by a score of 87-55.
"In the second half, our ball distribution was much better," noted Boucher. "The first half was probably our worst half of the year from a moving-the-basketball standpoint. In the second half, we improved a ton."
Meithof led all scorers with 21 points, while Townsell drained four 3-pointers en route to scoring 18 of his own. Brown and Singh both contributed with 13 points, while
Cade Roth led the club in rebounds with 10 and assists with six.
"Jalen was really good tonight," said Boucher. "He was working hard on the boards. He had nine rebounds, and so did
Tyler Austin, off the bench on top of that. Those two giving us 18 rebounds was a game-changer.
"Every game in this preseason we have to improve. Of course we want to have success in the win-loss column, but we have to recognize that ultimately it's about being ready for GSAC. It's such a new group, and they're still learning each other's tendencies and personalities.
"In the second half I was really happy, not just because we were able to widen the lead, but because it looked like we were growing as a team."
The club returns to the court on Wednesday, when they host La Sierra at 7:00 p.m. in Murchison Gym. Tickets are available on the Westmont Athletics website.
