Four straight for West Hempstead

It’s never easy, and sometimes it’s not pretty, but the West Hempstead girls’ basketball team is finding ways to win games. Backed by solid defense and timely scoring, the Lady Rams are 9-5 overall, 7-3 in Nassau Conference A-IV, and will be making their first trip to the postseason in over a decade.

Sophomore Kayla Cleare scored a career-high 13 points last Friday as the visiting Lady Rams shook off some early rust and knocked off Roosevelt, 43-31. The victory was the fourth consecutive for West Hempstead. Senior Jackie Tartaglia chipped in with nine points. 

Head coach Chris Van Kovics is pleased with the growth of his team since the beginning of the season. “We’re a different team than we were in November,” Van Kovics said. “We’ve found different ways to score, and finally bought into the fact that we can get plenty of points from the free throw line. Making the playoffs is a big accomplishment. Now, we need to try to get a few more wins and get as high a seed as possible.”

Defeating winless Roosevelt was no easy task. The Lady Rams couldn’t get anything going in the first half, and Roosevelt’s Tiara Ware had 10 points to give the Lady Riders a 19-18 lead at the break. 

The second half was all West Hempstead. Van Kovics played a box-and-one on Ware and held her scoreless over the last 16 minutes. All season long, Tartaglia, Taylor Friermuth, Jamie Rodriguez, and Miranda St. Hilaire have been effective when the Rams have gone to a box-and-one to shut down the opponent’s top scorer.

Earlier in the week, West Hempstead had perhaps its biggest victory of the year when it knocked off visiting Island Trees 51-50 in overtime. Nicole Christenson scored a game-high 22 points as the Rams avenged a 42-28 loss to the Lady Bulldogs back in December.

After Island Trees got a desperation buzzer-beater from Shamar Sanchez from just inside the half court line to force overtime, the Rams regrouped and pulled out the win. After Christenson fouled out, Cleare replaced her and hit one of two free throws to give West Hempstead a lead it never relinquished. The Rams scored 16 points from the foul line in the game.