The Whitehall girls basketball team went to Northampton last Friday night with a chance to sweep the season series with the K-Kids for the first time in recent memory. The Zephyrs took an 11-4 first quarter lead when Northampton started a lineup featuring 5 lesser-used seniors for Senior Night.

Once the Kids subbed their normal starters back in to start the second quarter, Northampton outscored Whitehall 46-26 over the final 24 minutes to win by a final of 50-37.

Senior Rachel Yost was the offensive star for the K-Kids. With Whitehall coming out of the halftime break holding an 18-15 lead, Yost got hot from beyond the arc, drilling three 3-pointers and scoring 11 points in 4 minutes as Northampton seized a 34-26 advantage after three quarters and never looked back.

Yost had 5 total threes on the night and a game-high 17 points, a fitting follow-up to the previous night when she had 6 treys against Allen.

She offered this explanation for her hot streak, “Whatever felt good, I just put it up. Knowing I have the team’s support and my family in the stands, that definitely helps give me confidence.”

Whitehall was undone primarily due to turnovers. They had 24 for the game and at least 5 in every quarter.

The Zephyrs’ leading scorer was Morgan Dunbar with 15. Nya Brown hit a pair of first-half threes for a total of 6 points. Charlotte Bynoe had 5 points. Jaylene Wilson, Madison Pagan, and Jade Alvarez all scored 3 points. Abigail Kneller had 2.

Anne Beenders scored 13 for the K-Kids. Dalani Petties notched 7. Kylie Eberts had 5. Jenna Raysely scored 4. Isabella Pecuch and Tatianna Sachez both had 2.

Northampton wrapped up the 2023-2024 campaign with a 6-16 record and 5-11 in the EPC, the first sub-.500 result for the program since 2014-2015.

Head coach Jeff Jacksits summed up the season, “It feels like a long year because we had adjust to having so little varsity experience coming back. But it was a good year. I’m looking forward to next year. We have three starters coming back (Beenders, Raysely, Pecuch) and Izzy (Pecuch) is going to getting better and better. She’s still learning a lot.”

Meanwhile, Whitehall finished the regular season with an identical record to the K-Kids, both overall and in league play.

However, their season is not over. While not official as of this date, the Zephyrs appear to be on track to claim the 4 seed in the District XI 5A playoffs. That would set them up with a game in the semifinals against probable top seed Bethlehem Catholic on Feb. 28.