By David Paulsen
SPORTS CORRESPONDENT
A 35-13 bulge in the second half turned a 24-14 halftime lead into a rout for the Burlington High School girls basketball team Friday.
Played at home, the 59-27 victory over Westosha Central got the Demon girls Southern Lakes Conference schedule off to a great start and evened their season record at 1-1.
“We dominated,” head coach Gordon Nikolic said of the sloppily-played game. “We had a real good second half.”
The Demons led 8-4 after one quarter and expanded that to the 10-point lead at the half on the basis of a 16-10 second-quarter margin. Eight of the 16 second-quarter points came from the free-throw line as the girls connected on 8 of 10 foul shots.
Burlington connected on two threes early in the third quarter.
“We took the lid off the basket,” Nikolic said.
In addition, defensively, the team increased the pressure on Westosha Central, with Nikolic rotating a lot of girls in.
“We’re focusing on some man defense. We are pressing some full court,” Nikolic said. “We were flying around on defense (in the third quarter. We wore them down.”
The result of that defensive pressure was that the Falcons did not get a bucket in the third quarter, scoring just two points on foul shots. Burlington outscored Westosha 13-2 in that quarter, and then added a 22-11 bulge in the final quarter.
All 12 Demon girls scored in this game, with Emily Golon leading the way with 13.
“Golon was 7 for 10 from the line, so we’ll take that any night,” Nikolic added.
Overall, the girls were 26 of 39 from the foul line, including 11 of 13 in the final quarter.
The Demons found the going much tougher against Wilmot Tuesday at home and the result was a 51-29 loss to the Panthers.
Wilmot held a narrow 6-4 lead after the low-scoring first quarter, but then outscored Burlington 14-4 in the second quarter to take a 20-8 lead at the half.
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