After a lengthy Christmas break layoff, Westwood High School's went to work on defending its Feather River League crown by pounding Herlong 92-37 on the road Wednesday, Jan. 17. It was the T.J. Arterberry show. The senior, who transferred from Herlong two years ago, hit for a career-high 54 points, joining two former Lumberjacks who have scored 50 or more points in a game.

Westwood's Matt Bryant scored 57, 54 and 50 during his career and Dan Church also hit the 50-mark in the early 1990s. Bryant's 57 is still the Northern Section single game scoring record.

Arterberry pushed his section-leading scoring total to 354 points and a 29.5 average.

"We have a lot of respect for Herlong and didn't try to run the score up, but we did leave T.J. in the game since it was his old school," Westwood head coach Phil Bryant said. "His original goal was get 20 rebounds, but he kept on hitting his shots."

Mike Naseath also helped out, burying five of eight three-pointers en route to 17 points.

It was Herlong's first game since playing in the Greenville Tournament to open the season and Westwood's first action since early December.

"Winning the game like that was a good restart to the season," said Bryant, who has the section's top-ranked Division VI team. "Right now we're trying to get healthy. Brian Fish and Nick Brown didn't make the trip to Herlong and others had to play sick with the flu.

"Although we're playing real well right now, the team's real focus is to fine tune our defense. We're trying to hold teams to 10 points or less a quarter. If we do that, we should have no problem winning."

Downieville canceled its game with the Lumberajcks Thursday, Jan. 11 in Westwood.

The Lumberjacks (11-1) travel to Greenville Thursday, Jan. 18 and host Loyalton Saturday, Jan. 20.

Westwood heads to Chester Friday, Jan. 26 and entertains Portola Saturday, Jan. 27.