Girls Basketball: Harvard-Westlake wins 74-43 over Notre Dame

In the Harvard-Westlake of North Hollywood gym hangs a banner with all the years the girls basketball team has won a league championship.

The year 2009 is on the banner although the team didn't win the Mission League title that year.

It will be easy to replace with a 2010 decal because the team has no plans of losing anymore games this season, especially after a 74-43 victory against defending league champion Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks.

The Wolverines improved to 18-1, 3-0, are ranked No. 1 in Div. IV-AA and have another big game next Friday at Alemany of Mission Hills.

Princeton-bound Nicole Hung scored 18 points, Hawaii-bound Sydney Haydel had 17 and UCSB-bound Nicole Nesbit had 12 to lead Harvard-Westlake.

"We don't plan on losing anymore this season," Haydel said.

The win was very gratifying for the Wolverines considering Notre Dame won the last two times in the Harvard-Westlake gym.

"Tonight was a little bit of a revenge game," Haydel said. "This was our year to comeback and win at home. Everybody was fired up and ready to play. We had a great pregame too."

Things looked like Notre Dame would be able to pull off another upset early as NC State-bound Kody Burke was unstoppable in the first half.

Burke had 19 of the Knights first 20 points helping them only trail 21-20 midway thorugh the second quarter.

However, the Wolverines went on a 14-0 run behind nine second quarter points each from Hung and Haydel and took a 15 point lead at halftime that only got bigger and bigger.

Burke finally slowed down in the second half, picked up her fourth foul at the 4:45 mark of the third quarter and eventually fouled out with 6:54 remaining.

"She is a great player," Haydel said. "She is very tough and physical but I think we just played better as a team."

No player other than Burke made a field goal until the second half and no one reached double figures behind Burke's 24.

"We want this season to be special," Haydel said. "We are committed to defense to make that happen."