The Hayfield Lady Hawks are jumping right into things in 2016-2017, with four games in five days to open the season. After grinding out a win at West Potomac Tuesday night, Rudy Coffield’s squad stepped up its game Wednesday at home to register a dominating 52-25 win over Forest Park in the nightcap of the Hawks’ Tip-off Classic.
Defense was the name of the game as the Hawks employed a sometimes sagging, sometimes trapping zone to stifle and keep the Bruins off balance. Prominent Forest Park senior center Bri Jenae’ Phillips did some damage down low with eight points and ten rebounds, but often found herself swarmed by Hawks defenders every time she caught the ball. Forest Park’s other players seemed unable to open things up for her on the perimeter, only making a few outside shots and none from three-point range.
When asked about his team’s defense on the night Coffield seemed satisfied. “Their post player [Phillips] was tough. We had to sag down on her,” he said. “But we didn’t allow them to hit us from outside, either.”
On offense Hayfield was paced by point guard Taylor King, who followed up her 18-point performance versus West Potomac on Tuesday with a 17-point performance against the Bruins. Junior guard Machaela Simmons added a career-best 16 on some extremely efficient shooting. While the Hawks weren’t particularly effective from the perimeter themselves, their quickness allowed them to get to the rim almost at will and come up with a fair amount of loose balls.
The road gets tougher almost immediately for Hayfield, which must play Edison Friday before concluding its tournament against Osbourn Park Saturday. Both Edison, coming off a loss to T.C. Williams, and Osbourn Park are ranked in our “Nova Nineteen” rankings and will provide the Hawks some tough competition. Still, Coffield is optimistic about his squad and was pleased with his team’s performance.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, but we’re getting there,” Coffield said. “This is a young group but we’ve got a good team.”
–Chris Jollay
all stats are unofficial
| HAYFIELD | FG | FT | TP | RBS | AST | |
| KING | 7-18 | 1-3 | 17 | 2 | 1 | |
| KIRBY | 4-7 | 1-2 | 9 | 2 | 0 | |
| RHEAMS | 1-10 | 2-5 | 4 | 10 | 0 | |
| T. SHERRILL | 1-6 | 1-4 | 3 | 7 | 1 | |
| SIMMONS | 6-10 | 4-5 | 16 | 5 | 0 | |
| Ross | 0-2 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | |
| L. Sherrill | 0-2 | 2-2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | |
| Villacorte | 0-1 | 1-2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| Shingler | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| TOTALS | 19-56 | 12-23 | 52 | 29 | 2 | |
| FOREST PARK | FG | FT | TP | RBS | AST | |
| CHAMBERS | 1-4 | 0-0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | |
| PEAKE | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | |
| PHILLIPS | 4-8 | 0-7 | 8 | 10 | 0 | |
| PRINCE | 0-7 | 1-2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| TORRES | 2-6 | 2-4 | 6 | 5 | 1 | |
| Howard | 1-2 | 0-0 | 2 | 4 | 0 | |
| Johnson | 0-2 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Gaudin | 0-8 | 1-2 | 1 | 3 | 0 | |
| Caero | 2-5 | 0-0 | 4 | 1 | 1 | |
| Alderman | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Galloway | 0-0 | 1-2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| TOTALS | 10-43 | 5-17 | 25 | 26 | 3 | |
| Hawks 3-pointers: King 2-5, Rheams 0-1, T. Sherrill 0-2, Simmons 0-3, Villacorte 0-1 | ||||||
| Bruins 3-pointers: Johnson 0-1, , Alderman 0-1 | ||||||