Medfield Girls' Hoops: First Quarter Run Sparks 27-Point Win Over Westwood

A 20-0 Medfield run through the first 7:27 of Friday's girls' basketball game keyed a 66-29 victory over Westwood to improve to 7-0 (6-0 in Tri-Valley League) this season.

"The key to our win was our pressure defense [early]," said Medfield head coach Mark Nickerson. "As a team we had 23 steals and most of them came in the first half."

Medfield led Westwood, 20-4 after the first quarter and 37-17 at halftime. After the break, the Warriors became sloppy at times but maintained a large lead for the easy victory.

"We came out playing hard," Nickerson said. "We talked about this all season. We have struggled getting off to good starts, we obviously did a good job [Friday]. It actually would have been a better start if we made some of those layups [in the first quarter]."

Medfield's Lauren Petit was the high scorer with 17 points, four assists and seven steals. Freshman Payton Ouimette netted nine points to go with 11 rebounds and Delaney Lawson added nine points and nine rebounds to the effort.

"We are getting good play off our bench," Nickerson said. "[Westwood] seemed to have their starting five out late in the fourth quarter and they didn’t dig into the lead too much and we might have even extended it a little bit. We’ve got players up and down this lineup that can play and that’s huge."

Medfield has a big week coming up with three games next week. The Warriors play Bellingham Tuesday, Fontbonne Academy Wednesday and Ashland Friday.

"My belief is that our best basketball is still ahead of us," Nickerson said.