COLLINSVILLE — The West Lauderdale High School girls basketball team matched the intensity of its head coach, which spelled trouble for Sumrall High School.

The Lady Knights rode a high-energy first half to an opening-round playoff win against the visiting Lady Bobcats Monday night, 60-34, in Class 4A postseason action. Though head coach Matt Lum is known for his animated personality, he insisted he didn’t to anything special to fire up his girls prior to the game — it was all self-motivation stemming from West Lauderdale’s opening-round playoff loss last year to Florence High School.

“We just got our butts kicked last year, and we remembered what that felt like,” Lum said. “Last year, the other team came out and stuck it to us in the first half, and we wanted to do the same thing.”

Said West Lauderdale senior Malloy Thompson, “It’s loser-go-home, and we really didn’t want to go home, so we were really pumped up and needed to bring intensity to the game.”

The first five seconds of regulation spelled out what kind of night it was going to be, as Thompson took the tipoff and made her way to the basket in five seconds for a layup. She finished the opening quarter with 11 points, five coming off free throws, as the Lady Knights jumped ahead 16-8 after one.

“The drive was open, and they were fouling a lot, so I got to the free-throw line,” Thompson said. 

The second quarter was more of the same, as West Lauderdale’s defensive pressure and fast-paced game seemed too much for Sumrall. The Lady Bobcats were held to just six points in the frame, while the Lady Knights added 19 to their total, including back-to-back 3-pointers by Heather Tolon and April Hunt. West Lauderdale led 35-13 at intermission.

Things slowed down for West Lauderdale in the third quarter, with the Lady Knights managing 13 in the frame while Sumrall scored 11. Sumrall was only 5 of 13 from the charity stripe in the third quarter, a stat that would come back to haunt the Lady Bobcats as they tried to make a run in the fourth quarter.

With much of West Lauderdale’s starting lineup on the bench in the fourth quarter for several minutes, Sumrall managed to make things a little interesting after trailing 48-38 entering the frame. The Lady Knights only scored four points in the first five minutes of the final period, while Sumrall managed 11 in the same timeframe. However, thanks in part to junior Maggie Wooldridge’s seven points in the frame, West Lauderdale remained in control through the final minutes to take the 17-point victory.

Despite some tough words for his players during their fourth-quarter lull, Lum said he was pleased with the overall results.

“We won,” Lum said with a chuckle. “We came out and played well in the first half and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the game for us, and we were really good defensively.”

A RARE SIGHT

Thompson didn’t score any points in the third or fourth quarter, and she was one of several players Lum gave a breather early on in the fourth. Usually, Thompson and Wooldridge are on the court the entire game, but Lum said he wanted to give Thompson a break if possible.

“We normally try to play them a lot of minutes early in the season to go ahead and get them conditioned, mentally and physically, for that challenge,” Lum said. “I know they get wore down, but her and Maggie play almost every minute of every game. We do the best we can and rest them when we can, but sometimes we just can’t — but they understand that.”

Thompson said she’s able to feed off her teammates to help fight the fatigue of a full 16 minutes of action.

“I depend on my teammates a lot,” Thompson said. “They keep me in the game.”

STATS

Wooldridge led in scoring with 17 points, while Thompson finished with 16. Tolon finished the game with nine points, and Amber Anderson tallied seven points.

“(Thompson) got us going early, and then as the game went on, Maggie kind of came through there and filled in that void as well, so it was fairly balanced scoring for us,” Lum said.

UP NEXT

West Lauderdale (20-12) will travel to Pass Christian for a 7 p.m. tipoff Friday in round two of the 4A postseason.

“It gives us a lot of momentum,” Thompson said of getting a dominant first-round win. “We’re confident in ourselves, and we’re confident in each other.”