MT. ULLA — After an even first quarter of play Wednesday night, West Rowan turned up the dial on the defensive pressure to pull away from Cox Mill.
With the teams knotted at 16 at the end of one, the Falcons allowed just 17 points over the final three frames to cruise to the 57-33 rout.
“It was a great win for us,” West head coach Ashley Poole said. “We were a little bit sluggish coming out, but we picked up the intensity and it was a great win.
“We emphasize defense a lot,” she continued. “Their No. 21 (Taylor Sehm-Crowley) got hot, so we wanted to stop her. We went to man-to-man and it worked well for us.
“We like to keep up the full-court press with the man-to-man and they did well in it.”
Sehm-Crowley kept the under-manned Chargers in the game with seven points in the opening frame, but Shanice Miller and the Falcons began to distance themselves in the second.
Taylor Martin drilled a 3-pointer to kick things off as West scored 11 of the first 13 points in the second to grab a 27-18 lead.
The Falcons pushed the advantage to 34-24 behind 19 points from Miller at the break before icing the game in the third.
“Somebody had to step up to help the team out,” Miller said. “I think if we work as a team and pass the ball around, we can win some games.
“We played well as a team and turned it up in the second half.”
West out-scored Cox Mill 14-3 in the third quarter — holding the Chargers without a field goal for the entire eight minutes — extending its lead to 48-27.
The Falcons continued their defensive pressure in the fourth, holding CM to just six points in the frame to run away with the 57-33 victory.
“We talk a lot about tempo. We want to keep the tempo of the game quick,” Poole added. “With Khaila Hall as our point guard, not many people can run the floor with her. We like to stay quick and keep pushing the ball up and down the court.
“We’re young so every win is big for us,” she added. “The girls have positioned themselves well in the conference.”
The Chargers, playing without three guards, simply ran out of gas running the floor with West.
“I’m down three guards right now, so we’re a little bit short on ball-handling right now,” Cox Mill coach Kate Jenis said. “But they played until the end. My goal was for them to play defense and to play until the clock said zero, and I feel like they did that.
“My point guard (Sehm-Crowley) is a leader and she tried to step up and take control the best she could,” she continued. “She kept us in it in that first quarter.”

COX MILL (33) — Sehm-Crowley 15, Elmore 9, Rinkus 5, Lewis 2, Davis 2, Claude, Montgomery, Morphey, Comer, Joseph.
WEST ROWAN (57) — S. Miller 21, Hall 9, Martin 8, Q. Miller 7, Alessandrini 7, Cowan 3, Lovell 2, Goddard, Greene, Yow, McNeely, Chambers.

Cox Mill 16 8 3 6 — 33
W. Rowan 16 18 14 9 — 57