By Thomas Jones, Sports Editor 

For a team with a rich winning tradition such as Westlake, losses rarely feel good.

But then again, the Chaps have rarely played as well in recent years against the state’s elite teams as they did Friday at Westlake High School.

No. 9 Pflugerville held off a tenacious Westlake squad 50-44 in a District 25-5A showdown. Still, it took a career effort by Pflugerville’s 6-foot-3-inch sophomore Nneka Enemkpali to shake a Chap team hampered by the illness of senior captain Caroline Durbin. Enemkpali scored a career-high 30 points and pulled down 12 rebounds. Six of those points came in a 6-0 Panther run that broke a 34-34 tie with 4:35 left in the game. 

“You don’t ever want to lose but I’m very happy with this team,” Westlake coach Keith Smith said. “It hurt not having Durbin at full strength, but our girls did a great job battling all night. I’m proud of them.”

Teams like Pflugerville have destroyed Westlake in the past few years. The Panthers boast a tall and talented front row and a pressure defense that can crack most backcourts in the state. Because Durbin was limited in practice most of the week, Smith inserted sophomore Hannah Coley into the starting lineup alongside classmate Cherrell Mays.

The all-sophomore backcourt did have its share of turnovers, but the guards also managed to run Westlake’s offense while harassing Pflugerville’s guards.

“Having Cherrell and Hannah and Ivana (Gomez) up on top on defense is intimidating for other teams,” said Westlake post Courtney Duever, who led the Chaps with 14 points. “We played really good defense tonight. I can’t wait to play them again.”

In the first period, defense took a backseat to a brilliant offensive display from both Duever and Enemkpali. The 6-foot-1-inch Duever, showing her newfound shooting range, nailed a pair of three-pointers while scoring a dozen of Westlake’s 14 points in the quarter. Enemkpali responded by punishing the Chaps inside for 11 of her team’s 18 points.

Both teams settled down defensively as the game turned into a battle for buckets. Pflugerville managed to rip off a series of brief runs behind its trademark press, but the Chaps responded each time. 

The largest Panther rally came in the fourth period after Natalie Vermillion converted a nice inbounds pass from Lauren Ambrose to tie the game at 36-36 with 5:45 left in the game. Enemkpali then had six points in a 9-0 Pflugerville, but Durbin stopped the spurt with a turnaround jumper in the paint. After an Enemkpali miss, Mays ripped down the rebound and fed Kayla Ball for a fast-break bucket that prompted a Pflugerville timeout.

Westlake came out of the timeout with another defensive stand and a Durbin bucket that cut Pflugerville’s lead to 45-42 with 1:31 left, but three consecutive turnovers stymied the Chaps in the final minute as Pflugerville held on for the win.

“It came down to a couple of rebounds here or a couple of turnovers there,” Smith said. “We could have had them, but they’re really athletic and really good.”

Pflugerville forced 28 turnovers and had 16 of their 32 rebounds on the offensive glass. However, they shot just 21-of-53 against Westlake’s stout defense and ended the game with a one-rebound deficit.

Enemkpali made 14 of 21 shots from the field.

Durbin had 10 points despite limited minutes, and Ball had six points and six rebounds for the Chaps.

As a team, Westlake shot 20-of-50 from the floor and missed a handful of layups. That production provided plenty of optimism heading into the break, Duever said.

“Definitely, getting within six points of the No. 9 team in state is pretty good,” she said.

“We can beat them. We just need to work on things like boxing out and making layups, but it’ll be fun (when we play again.)”