On Tuesday, the Westlake Lions, the No. 2 team in the nation, in ESPN’s Top 25 girls basketball rankings, hosted the Lovejoy Wildcats in a battle of two of Georgia’s top ranked girls basketball programs. Several rankings have both the Lions and Wildcats in the top five, but positions varied from list to list as a couple had Lovejoy ahead of Westlake. The match up would be the first time the two teams met as region opponents and it would be Westlake besting Lovejoy 58-47. However, for Westlake, what has been more impressive than their ranking position has been their dominance over Georgia opponents. Since the 2017-2018 season, the Lions have not lost to a team from the state of Georgia and have only lost four games within the same time from, bringing home back to back to back state titles during this stretch that now has them sitting at 96-4 following their 58-47 win over Lovejoy on Tuesday night. With the win on Tuesday, Westlake is now off to a 6-0 start and following the victory, head coach, Hilda Hankerson said that what has impressed her so far in the young season is her players “trying to come together and jell,” adding that this particular group is probably one of the more “faster” teams than she’s had in the past. She went on to say that, although the team may have some weaknesses in other areas, their speed is something that they have been able to “capitalize” on. As for, areas Coach Hankerson would like to see the team get better in, she stated “we definitely want to execute better offensively on all of our plays. Our execution is not as strong as I would like it to be, but we make up for it with our athleticism.” Coach Hankerson also said that she would like to see some improvement defensively, but it is worth noting that in Tuesday’s win over Lovejoy, the Lions held the Wildcats to just six points in the third quarter.
The Lions will be off for the Christmas holiday and will return to action against Southwest Dekalb on December 28 before they take on two teams from Florida during the She Got Game Classic January 1st and 2nd.