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Westbury Wildcats aim for basketball championship
By MIKE TENNEY
With everybody back from a 27-9 team last winter, the Westbury Christian girls basketball team has its sights set on a TAPPS 5A state championship.
And with 6-foot-6 North Carolina-bound Waltia Rolle patrolling the middle and 6-foot-7 junior Maddy Absher coming off the bench, the Wildcats can see it clearer than most teams.
“We are blessed to have those two young ladies on our team,” said head coach Reed Sutton. “And Waltia isn’t just a 6-foot-6 player, she’s a 6-foot-6 athlete, who can do a lot of things on the floor. She’s definitely our leader.”
The Wildcats got off to a great start last weekend, cruising through the eight-team Charlie Thomas tournament.
They slammed Incarnate Word of Houston, 86-21, and then defeated St. Agnes 89-56 before winning the championship game, 65-30 over Fort Worth Christian.
“It was a great way to start the season,” said Sutton. “The girls played very well. We shot the ball well and played great defense. Our defense generated a lot of points for us with turnovers, so we couldn’t have been more pleased with the start.”
They averaged more than 20 steals a game with their pressure defense and Rolle averaged 20 points, seven rebounds and five steals per outing in limited minutes, because of the scores.
He said the best thing about the team’s play was that everybody contributed, because all 13 varsity players got a lot of minutes in each game.
“Usually we’re looking to play nine or 10 players, but we were able to play everybody and everybody did a good job,” said Sutton. “We’re still only looking to play nine or 10, but we do have some depth that we can go to if we need to.”
The Wildcats are a four-guard team that wants to keep pressure on the ball defensively and feed the ball to the big girls when they need to.
Senior Sonja Buong, senior Jakubeya Mitchell, junior Lateicia Cuellar and sophomore Amber Orrange along with Rolle make up the starting five. Besides Absher, 6-foot-1 sophomore Rachael Strom is one post off the bench along with junior guard Cami Olson and senior guard Ariel Robinson.
The girls are right back at it this Friday, opening pool play in the Riviera Classic in Corpus Christi at 6 p.m. against 5A San Antonio Holmes and then coming back at 9 a.m. Saturday to face Tulosa Midway. It starts a lot of weekends on the road for the Wildcats.
“I think we’ve got tournaments the next five weekends, so these early games, we try to schedule as many good 5A teams as we can to help us get ready for district, and hopefully, the playoffs,” said Sutton. “We want to test our kids mettle against those good 5A teams because I think it makes us a better team later on down the road.”
The Wildcats were the District 4-5A champions last winter with a perfect 10-0 record.
And with 6-foot-6 North Carolina-bound Waltia Rolle patrolling the middle and 6-foot-7 junior Maddy Absher coming off the bench, the Wildcats can see it clearer than most teams.
“We are blessed to have those two young ladies on our team,” said head coach Reed Sutton. “And Waltia isn’t just a 6-foot-6 player, she’s a 6-foot-6 athlete, who can do a lot of things on the floor. She’s definitely our leader.”
The Wildcats got off to a great start last weekend, cruising through the eight-team Charlie Thomas tournament.
They slammed Incarnate Word of Houston, 86-21, and then defeated St. Agnes 89-56 before winning the championship game, 65-30 over Fort Worth Christian.
“It was a great way to start the season,” said Sutton. “The girls played very well. We shot the ball well and played great defense. Our defense generated a lot of points for us with turnovers, so we couldn’t have been more pleased with the start.”
They averaged more than 20 steals a game with their pressure defense and Rolle averaged 20 points, seven rebounds and five steals per outing in limited minutes, because of the scores.
He said the best thing about the team’s play was that everybody contributed, because all 13 varsity players got a lot of minutes in each game.
“Usually we’re looking to play nine or 10 players, but we were able to play everybody and everybody did a good job,” said Sutton. “We’re still only looking to play nine or 10, but we do have some depth that we can go to if we need to.”
The Wildcats are a four-guard team that wants to keep pressure on the ball defensively and feed the ball to the big girls when they need to.
Senior Sonja Buong, senior Jakubeya Mitchell, junior Lateicia Cuellar and sophomore Amber Orrange along with Rolle make up the starting five. Besides Absher, 6-foot-1 sophomore Rachael Strom is one post off the bench along with junior guard Cami Olson and senior guard Ariel Robinson.
The girls are right back at it this Friday, opening pool play in the Riviera Classic in Corpus Christi at 6 p.m. against 5A San Antonio Holmes and then coming back at 9 a.m. Saturday to face Tulosa Midway. It starts a lot of weekends on the road for the Wildcats.
“I think we’ve got tournaments the next five weekends, so these early games, we try to schedule as many good 5A teams as we can to help us get ready for district, and hopefully, the playoffs,” said Sutton. “We want to test our kids mettle against those good 5A teams because I think it makes us a better team later on down the road.”
The Wildcats were the District 4-5A champions last winter with a perfect 10-0 record.
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