Westlake threw every defense they had against St. Louis Catholic Friday night at Barbe High School.

Each time they changed it up, the Saints would find a way to exploit it until the Rams improved their communication on the court and pulled away for a 42-29 win.

“We went back to our man and basically talked at halftime that we needed to communicate,” Westlake head coach Gloria Fontenot said. “It was a matter of communication and doing a better job of talking it through.

“They did a much better job in the second half, and they held them down. We were giving up some offensive rebounds in the beginning, but like I told them, there is no reason. I think they turned around and only got two or three more in the second half. We controlled the boards a little better and communicated.”

St. Louis made nine field goals in the first half, including Sonny Woodcocks’ three 3-pointers, and led 23-22 at halftime.

The Saints held a 12-8 rebounding advantage in the first half, but Westlake (18-4, 2-0) outrebounded the Saints 12-6 in the second half.

“We came out with probably the worst defensive game,” Fontenot said. “We tried pressing, and we don’t always press.

“We tried that, and the rotations were late. I thought St. Louis did a pretty good job of breaking it. We didn’t get enough out of it, so we went to man, and they started scoring off our man. We just weren’t communicating. We are a pretty good defensive team, but we weren’t communicating on the cuts and screens. We weren’t helping on the drives. We went to our other zone, and they lit it up.”

The Rams got it right in the second half and held them to 3 of 14 shooting and just one field goal over the final 12 minutes and 24 seconds.

Westlake took the lead for good with 4:59 left in the third quarter when Lady Fradieu made a steal, and Gabby Guillory converted the layup for a 26-25 advantage. Guillory led Westlake with a game-high 18 points, and Fradieu finished with 13.

After trailing most of the first quarter, St. Louis scored 17 of its 29 points in the second quarter and led by as many as four points after a four, 23-19, by Woodcock with 52 seconds left in the first half. Woodcock led St. Louis 4-16, 1-2) with 11 points.

Westlake, the No. 4 team in nonselect Division III, has four games left in the regular season, starting with a home game on Tuesday against the fifth-ranked team in nonselect Division II in Iowa (22-4, 2-1).

“We need to work out some kinks,” Fontenot said. “It wasn’t a great offensive night for us.

“They (St. Louis) took us out of our rhythm. Good job to them as far as that goes. It took us a little bit of time to get some rhythm out of that. I think it is going to help down the stretch seeing that because we are more than capable. Really, I have five kids that can score out there.”