BASKETBALL: Back-to-back sweeps for West Laurens vs. Harlem, Aquinas

Things seem to be coming together at the right time for the West Laurens Raiders late in the regular season. 

They made it back-to-back sweeps in a pair of home makeup games with Aquinas Wednesday night, less than 24 hours removed from an even bigger set of wins Tuesday on the road at Harlem.  

Maddie Ridgway’s game-winning 3 with seconds to go delivered the Lady Raiders Tuesday’s victory by a final of 39-37. They carried the momentum into Wednesday’s matchup, and blew away Aquinas 60-29. 

The West Laurens boys powered past Harlem 60-43, then destroyed the overmatched Fightin’ Irish 82-50. 

Both teams will have the coming weekend off as they prepare for the last two of the regular season next Tuesday, at Cross Creek, and Friday, senior night against the Academy of Richmond County. 

This week’s games marked the first consecutive wins of the season for the Lady Raiders (6-16, 5-9 region 4-AAA), whose inexperience – in many games this year – has made it tough to find a groove, and stay there. In these, they were able to turn some previously sporadic execution into more of a repeating pattern. 

“They’re just starting to build confidence and get comfortable,” said West Laurens girls head coach Tyler Rogers. “I’ve always told them, you want to be playing your best basketball at the end of January. So hopefully we’re starting to do that, turning the corner and we’ll get to the region tournament and see what happens.” 

A long-awaited reversal of late-game fortunes helped the Lady Raiders bring their three-game losing streak to an end Tuesday, with a finish similar to one favoring Harlem in the final seconds of their stinging loss to the Bulldogs back in December. 

Ridgway reached double-digits, and a total of 11, with her game-winning triple right around eight seconds to go after Harlem had scored to take a one-point lead. 

West advanced the ball for a timeout, then found the senior on the weak side of the defense for the go-ahead look. 

“Actually, we drew something up for Brooklyn (Jackson) and they kind of took that away,” Rogers said. “We got the ball in to Gabby (Carswell), and she catches, dribbles up to the top and then swings it back to Maddy and she hit a big 3 in the corner.” 

Jackson finished with 18 to lead the West Laurens scoring, and put up another 16 the following night, though Wednesday’s top performance belonged to Carswell, who hit six 3-pointers, adding one two-point field goal in a massive first half to finish with 20. 

The game was out of question pretty early, as the Lady Raiders jumped out to leads of 22-7 after one, and 44-19 by the half. 

Ridgway and Ja’Halee Snead had seven points each. 

The West Laurens boys (10-11, 7-7 region), who have now won four league games in a row, got off to big starts in both of this week’s games. 

Tuesday, they outscored Harlem 15-5 in quarter 1, before adding six more to the lead by halftime. 

The Bulldogs would chip nine off of it to get within seven going to the fourth, but another 10-point surplus in the last eight minutes helped the Raiders pull away. 

Dorian Watkins, with 16 points, R.J. Whipple, with 15, and Nas Jones, with 10, led the way offensively.  

Wednesday, West Laurens had Aquinas thoroughly overmatched with a starting unit that hardly let the Irish get a possession over midcourt. 

The Raiders’ full-court pressure forced at least 10 turnovers as they raced out to a 19-0 lead before Aquinas got on the board. 

And it didn’t hurt that their shooters were four for their first four on 3-point attempts. 

Whipple sunk three, and Dorian Watkins one more in the first three and a half minutes to put the game’s first dozen points on the board. 

West, up 29-6 after a quarter, backed off the press a bit as a brand new lineup subbed into the game for the second. Aquinas, able to better hold its own against the second string, went on a brief run midway through to get the margin back inside of 20 points. But the Raiders still took a comfortable lead to the break, and maintained it for the remainder of the night. 

Omarion Coverson (15 points), Jones (14), Mark Fordham (13, along with a team-high nine rebounds) and Watkins (11) paced West Laurens in scoring. 

“Both games were great team wins,” Raider boys head coach Izell Stephens said. “We are finally increasing the intensity of our defense, which is helping our offense become more productive. I’m proud of this team battling all season, learning from mistakes and correcting them to allow us to grow as a team.”