LATHROP – Lathrop girls basketball coach Dwayne Davis knows how to get his players to respond.
Dissatisfied with his team’s defensive effort in the first half Tuesday night against visiting West, his halftime chat resulted in the Wolf Pack netting just three third-quarter points as the Spartans rolled to a 48-25 non-league victory.
“At halftime I told the girls we just weren’t playing defense,” Davis said. “We were letting players got to places on the floor that they shouldn’t. I told them to clamp down because if I saw anyone two feet off of someone they were coming out of the game.
“Unlike the first half we didn’t allow them extra shots or extra rebounds – they were just chasing the ball down while we were watching. I told the anyone watching was coming off the floor, so we got active and we got to the ball to start the third quarter. We have to get better at rebounding because we are playing defense twice as long as we have to at times.”
Tatiana Lowery (five points) came up with five rebounds for Lathrop (5-3).
“Defense is not really a one-person thing,” Lowery said. “You have to trust in your teammates to be able to help you and that’s just what I did today.
“They had my back when I needed them to and I had theirs. We boxed out a lot better than we have, we did pretty good as defenders and we need to keep doing what we are doing.”
The Spartans’ Kierstin Constantino led all scorers with 18 points.
“We didn’t have one of our best players playing today so others got to step up and play their roles,” Constantino said.
Egypt Jenkins added six points and six rebounds for Lathrop and Sanah Sunner chipped in six points, four rebounds and two steals.
Ashley Chan led West with 10 points.
Junior varsity
Lathrop 39, West 37
Ajah Smith made a rebound in the closing seconds to secure the win for the Spartans.
Lathrop’s Haven Urbina-Thiery scored 12 points.
Freshman
Lathrop 30, West 23
The Spartans outscored the Wolf Pack 21-11 to come from behind for the win.
Osen Ugbiyobo led Lathrop with 10 points and Tiba Sameer added eight points.
