PITTSBORO — As the first-half buzzer sounded and the Seaforth women’s basketball team walked toward the locker room, ahead by 13, it was clear that something needed fixing.
The Hawks held onto a 27-14 lead over the winless Cummings Cavaliers heading into the break on Dec. 14, but they were coming off of a second quarter where they turned the ball over eight times, barely outscored the Cavaliers (11-10) and allowed their opponents to score 10 of their 14 first-half points from the free-throw line.
Charles Byrd, the team’s first-year head coach, spotted the issue right away.
“When we went into the locker room, the emphasis was our intensity, but I felt like our intensity had dropped over the course of the first half,” Byrd said after the game. “We really put an emphasis on that (after the break) and just came out playing hard and aggressive.”
Seaforth did just that. The Hawks crushed the Cavaliers in the third quarter, 30-2, to cruise to the eventual 40-point victory, 62-22, for the first conference win in program history.
The team’s high-intensity leaders were freshmen guards Gabby White (22 points) and Peyton Collins (18 points), both of whom turned up the heat on the offensive end in the second half.
Collins sparked the team’s third-quarter run by hitting a 3-pointer right out of the gate before promptly scoring the Hawks’ first seven points of the second half.
“Peyton is our energy,” Byrd said. “She’s always playing hard, she always has a ton of energy, she runs the floor great and she plays really well defensively. She’s a tough player. I’m glad I have her.”
The Hawks’ aggressiveness on both sides of the ball prevented the Cavaliers from getting into any sort of rhythm.
White’s knack for collecting steals — even sometimes forcefully ripping them out of an opposing guard’s hands and sprinting down the court for a fast break layup — came in part because of her aggression, even if it cost her a foul or two.
Hawks 6-foot-1 freshman forward Sydney Ballard’s ability to stuff her opponent’s shots — and Seaforth as a whole racking up 13 total blocks — can also be attributed to both her aggressive playstyle and sizeable height advantage.
No matter where you looked — the players on the court, the Hawks’ bench or even the fans in the stands — the intensity, aggression and passion was there for a Seaforth team that struggled at times in the first half.
And when it was all said and done, the Hawks had a major lead in one of Byrd’s most emphasized statistical categories: points in the paint.
Against the Cavaliers, the Hawks undoubtedly had the advantage in the height department, using it to outscore their opponents, 32-12, around the rim.
To add insult to injury, the Hawks also out-rebounded the Cavaliers by a large margin, 43-23.
“We try to put an emphasis on attacking the rim,” Byrd said. “I am the type of coach that wants to be the aggressor on both ends of the floor, defensively and offensively.”
White was the primary beneficiary of the Byrd’s call to attack the rim, consistently getting the attention of the officials by fighting through contact on many of her drives into the paint.
When she wasn’t pulling off beautiful eurostep moves and splitting defenders on her way to the basket, she was typically getting the whistle blown in her favor. In total, White scored 10 of her 22 points by way of the charity stripe, making 67% of her 15 attempts from the line.
“Her shooting a ton of free throws is just from us putting that emphasis on attacking every day,” Byrd said.
With 4:37 to play in the third quarter, Cummings junior Dori Paylor poked the ball away from Seaforth sophomore Hannah Ajayi off of a rebound and put it back up for the Cavaliers’ first points of the half, snapping the Hawks’ 11-0 run.
By then, Seaforth had claimed a 38-16 advantage, but it’d only get worse from there with the Hawks rattling off another massive run, 20-0, over the next 10 minutes of game time.
Cummings’ offense had no chance to keep up with Seaforth’s third-quarter scoring barrage, finishing the night shooting an inefficient 17% from the field (7 for 42), compared to the Hawks’ 42% (22 for 52).
Part of it was the Cavaliers simply having an off night; the other was the Hawks’ intimidating paint presence that prevented Cummings from (mostly) having any form of success down low.
The fourth quarter was actually won by the Cavaliers, 6-5, after Seaforth took a 40-point lead (which, in the second half, triggers the constantly running clock).
But it was way too little, way too late as the Hawks’ big third quarter propelled them to the blowout win.
A few nights later, Seaforth narrowly escaped a trip to Yanceyville with a 43-38 win over the Bartlett Yancey Buccaneers to improve to 2-0 in the Mid-Carolina 1A/2A conference and 4-3 overall.
While the Hawks have seen plenty of improvement after a 2-3 start to the season, Byrd made it clear that there was still work to be done.
“I feel great, but I still feel like we have a ton of work to do,” Byrd said. “I think we have to do a better job in the half-court offense, getting a better understanding of what we’re trying to do offensively with our sets, and then some of our rotations defensively, we had a couple of breakdowns and just have to work on that.”
But with a roster consisting of strictly freshmen and sophomores, a 4-3 record through seven games isn’t so bad, said Byrd.
“I’m having fun,” he said with a smile. “I’m happy to be here.”
Reporter Victor Hensley can be reached at vhensley@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @Frezeal33.