Williamsville South Makes A Statement With Convincing Win Over Sacred Heart

It was supposed to be a premier matchup between two of the strongest public and private schools in the area. Instead, another Battle of Main Street went to Williamsville South.

The Billies started strong in their annual showdown against Sacred Heart Academy and rolled to a 67-42 win on Wednesday night in front of an enthusiastic home crowd.

“It’s a great win,” Williamsville South senior co-captain Lauren Lassiter said. “I think whenever we work hard, and stay together, as long as we’re hitting and playing great defense, we can accomplish great things.”

The Billies, who remained undefeated against Western New York teams, started out strong and built a double-digit lead midway through the first quarter and kept it that way throughout. South never trailed, led by 26 points at halftime and was in control all night long.

“We played one of our strongest basketball games,’ Billies coach Kristen Dolan said.”Sacred Heart is a super-talented team but things were just going our way tonight.”

Williamsville South improved to 9-3 on the season with all three losses coming against tough out-of-area foes. Locally, nobody has come within double figures of the Billies – and that has the Billies thinking big long-term,

“Our plan is to win states,” freshman standout Amari DeBerry said. “I know that’s most teams’ plans but I think we can actually do it. I’m that confident in our team. Tatyjana (Scalisi) is a big factor for our team, she’s strong; she gets a lot of our rebounds. Hannah (Dolan), she’s one of the best point guards I’ve ever seen. Lauren (Lassiter) is just such a great shooter. All of us play so well together.”

Scalisi scored 16 points to lead the balanced attack for South. DeBerry and Dolan added 14 points apiece, Lassiter tossed in 12 and Naomi DeBerry scored nine the Billies.

While Williamsville South is happy with its progress, the Billies also know the challenges are going to keep getting bigger.

“We talk about those little things,” Kristen Dolan said. “We talk about sharing the basketball. If we share the basketball like that, we’ll do well”

Williamsville South’s 1-2-2 half-court trap caused havoc from the get-go for the Sharks. Sacred Heart committed nine turnovers in the first quarter and the Billies took command of the game early.

“We were prepared for what they were going to do,” Sacred Heart coach Carrie Owens said. “It was more or less what we did. They did everything in our game plan we were told not to do. We drove to the sidelines, we threw overhead passes … everything we worked on in practice, we did the opposite of.”

Sacred Heart fell to 12-5 on the season. Micaela Ryan scored 18 points, while Siobhan Ryan added 14.

The Sharks also received a big blow early in the second quarter. Junior captain Makenzie Sees went down with looked like it may have been a serious knee injury while battling on defense.

That hurt us a lot,” Owens said. “The girls know what a huge factor she is. She’s athletic, she’s tall, she’s a defensive presence. We had to shift some people out of their normal positions and that got them confused.