The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend was a memorable one for the Westlake girls basketball team, which reached a historic milestone and put up its most impressive victory of the season in a four-day span.
The milestone came on Friday when Westlake beat Hughes 58-39. It was the Lions’ 100th consecutive victory in games played in Georgia, a streak that began at the start of the 2017-18 season, produced the past three state championships in Class 7A and has Westlake sitting at 11-0 and ranked No. 1 in 6A after dropping during reclassification. Last season, Westlake became the sixth school in state history to win three consecutive championships in the highest classification.
“Reaching the milestone of 100 wins in Georgia is a feat that we don’t take lightly,” Lions coach Hilda Hankerson said. “It wasn’t a goal of excellence until I made the girls count the wins on the banners from the previous years and we were at 89 wins just before the final [last season]. I realized in that moment, that we were on to an amazing accomplishment if we got to 90 last season. At the start of this season, I knew we needed 10 wins to reach that 100th mark. I never mentioned it to the team until we won on Saturday night. …
“To reach 100 consecutive wins was never a goal, but working to achieve a level of excellence is what we constantly strive for at Westlake, and with that came the unexpected 100 consecutive wins. We are very grateful to all the Lady Lions who made this 100th victory a major milestone in the Westlake athletic history books.”
Westlake has lost just three games during its run, all of which came against non-Georgia opponents in out-of-state tournaments. The Lions lost to Mercer County of Kentucky 77-73 for its only loss of the 2017-2018 season and was defeated last season by Paul VI of Virginia and Centennial of Nevada. Westlake was undefeated in 2018-2019.
“Over 25 years of coaching at Westlake, we would average 20-plus wins a season,” Hankerson said. “We had one undefeated season in the 2019 state championship year. We are truly blessed to have been able to sustain a level of excellence with outstanding athletes like Raven Johnson, Ta’Niya Latson and Brianna Turnage.”
Johnson, the state’s all-classification player of the year in 2020 who has signed with South Carolina, is averaging 15.4 points, 5.6 assists, 4.5 rebounds and 4.1 steals. Turnage, a senior committed to Virginia Tech, leads the team in rebounds (7.7) and minutes played (25.1) and averages 8.1 points. Latson, a junior with multiple Division I offers, is the team’s leading scorer (21.8).
Westlake extended its streak to 101 on Monday with a 70-34 win against Forest Park, which won the 6A championship last season and is ranked No. 1 in 5A this year. Westlake led 23-6 at the end of the first quarter, 43-14 at halftime and rested its starters in the fourth quarter. Latson had 27 points, five rebounds and two steals. Johnson scored 18 points and had six rebounds, nine assists and four steals. Forest Park’s Sania Feagin, also a South Carolina signee, had 14 points and five rebounds.
“The win over Forest Park was a big win this season,” Hankerson said. “With COVID-19, we haven’t had the opportunity to play many top teams because we could not travel. We were excited to play a well-coached team like Forest Park, What we did to be successful against them was to follow the game plan that we created vs. Forest Park. The team bought into the vision and was able to be successful.”
Top girls game of the weekend
*Hughes at Lovejoy (Friday): With Westlake taking command of Region 4, fourth-ranked Hughes and No. 5 Lovejoy appear to be in a battle for second place. Hughes (14-3, 5-1) trails Westlake (11-0, 6-0) by one game and has a one-game lead on Lovejoy (13-5, 4-2), which has lost to Westlake twice this season. Lovejoy won a state championship in 2018, and Hughes was a semifinalist last season. The teams are scheduled to face each other again on Feb. 2 in the final game of the regular season.
Top boys game of the weekend
*Dacula at Buford (Friday): Sixth-ranked Lanier (14-3, 6-0) and No. 7 Shiloh (12-4, 5-1) have begun to pull away from the pack in Region 8, which is the only Class 6A region with three teams in this week’s top 10. The winner of this week’s game between No. 10 Buford (12-4, 3-2) and Dacula (8-8, 3-2) will take sole possession of third place. Buford is seeking to end a two-game losing streak following losses to Shiloh (70-56) and Lanier (66-60) in the past week. Dacula won a non-region game against Cherokee Bluff on Monday but has lost its last two region games, also against Shiloh (50-39) and Lanier (57-39).
