Posted: February 6, 2013

By Greg Brill

Special to The Winchester Star

FRONT ROYAL — Even when the other team is holding a double-digit lead, the James Wood boys’ basketball team never believes it is out of a game.

With a squad that substitutes often and plays at a breakneck pace, the Colonels can turn things their way in no time at all.

Such was the case on Tuesday night, as James Wood rallied from 10 points down late in the third quarter to trail by four heading to the fourth, then rolled Skyline with 27 points over the final eight minutes to notch an 89-82 Northwestern District win — the first for the Colonels this season.

“As soon as we got to the fourth quarter we knew we had to take charge,” said James Wood junior guard Ryland Williams, who scored eight of his game-high 20 points in the fourth quarter. “Our hustle took charge, basically. We didn’t want to lose to them. We lost to them last time, we lost to them last year in the district play-in [game], so we had to get them this time.” James Wood (8-12, 1-6) snapped a six-game losing streak against a team it will see again real soon — in next week’s Northwestern play-in game on Monday at Millbrook High School. Skyline (13-8, 1-6) will be playing the Colonels in the district play-in for the third straight season, and each team has won once.

The matchup for Monday was already determined prior to Tuesday’s game, but that did not mean that the Colonels or Hawks were in any mood to go through the motions. James Wood struck first with an 11-2 run to open the game, but Skyline quickly found out it could handle the pace and stormed to a 22-20 lead by the end of the first quarter. The Hawks led 43-37 at the half and 66-62 heading to the fourth, before the Colonels got back to finding their shots a little better in the fourth quarter and working harder off the defensive end to push ahead against an opponent that started to show wear from the fast pace of the game.

To open the fourth, Cam Butler nailed a 3-pointer (his only basket of the game) and Peyton Crickman (18 points, four 3-pointers) kept up his game-long hot touch with another 3, sending James Wood out to a 68-66 lead.

The Colonels added a pair of 3-pointers a little later in the fourth, one each from Nick Goode (14 points, three 3-pointers) and Crickman, to open a 78-73 lead with 3:16 left.

James Wood kept shooting from deep — regardless of the result — throughout the game, and the Colonels made 16 3-pointers in their first district win.

“We counted on outscoring them tonight,” Skyline coach Jacob Bates said. “We stopped playing defense the way we planned on playing defense, they got some confidence going, and once they knocked down a few [3-pointers] they continued to do so. They made 16 3-pointers tonight, so that made it tough for us to win.”

Not that the fight was over, by any means, for Skyline. A 6-1 run, capped by two free throws from Casey Stewart, tied the game at 79-79 with 1:45 left.

But down the stretch, James Wood made all the crucial plays. The Colonels got second-chance points, which Michael Carter completed with a drive for an 81-79 lead with 1:16 left. After a Skyline miss, Butler zipped a pass to Williams for a layup and four point lead with under a minute to go.

A Skyline turnover resulted in Williams knocking down two free throws with 40 seconds left, making it 85-79 Colonels. Another turnover followed for the Hawks, and after Goode missed in the bonus, James Wood maintained possession when Skyline could not control the rebound and lost the ball out of bounds.

Williams then sealed it with two more free throws with 27 seconds left for an eight-point lead.

The Colonels have often found themselves out of games by the fourth quarter, but by outscoring Skyline 27-16 down the stretch, James Wood got an instant confidence-boost for the next week.

“The first district win, and it felt so good,” said Williams, who added five assists and five steals in the win. “You could see everyone so happy in the locker room after this one. It was one of our better games, especially on the defensive end. Our offense was there sometimes and sometimes it wasn’t. But on the defensive end, we definitely played together there.”

The Colonels still had trouble slowing the Hawks from getting high-percentage shots (each team made 33 field goals in the game) until a switch to a very active zone defense beginning in the third period allowed James Wood the opportunity to slow Skyline.

After the Hawks attacked the basket often and scored at least 21 points in each of the first three quarters, all they could muster was 16 (on 5 of 16 shooting) in the fourth quarter.

“They stopped giving up easy shots and we didn’t react well to the zone,” Bates said. “I’m not really sure why. It’s something we’ve seen and it shouldn’t been an issue, but we didn’t face up [to shoot] and we didn’t get the shots we wanted against the zone.”

Skyline was ahead 64-54 after Kylmen Breeden followed in a teammate’s miss with 2:28 left in the third, but James Wood got a 3-pointer from Goode and Williams scored five points (including a 3-pointer) to finish off the period and leave the Colonels down only four points.

Holding Skyline to two points late in the third carried over momentum to the fourth, and James Wood’s ability to play better defense was a key when it mattered most.

“I think the big thing was our shot selection allowed them to sometimes get run-outs on us, and they would have 3-on-1 and 2-on-1 situations, and we weren’t covering the back side out of that,” James Wood coach Al Smith said. “That’s when we decided to [go zone] and take that back side away.

“To me, that was difference — just the change of defense and not allowing them to get the very easy basket that they were getting earlier.”

For the longest time, Skyline looked like it was about to send its seven seniors off with a win in their final home game. The Hawks put six players in double-digit scoring, headed by seniors Aaron Jeremiah (19 points), Nick Helmick (13 points, 13 rebounds), Dayvon Haight (12 points, nine rebounds, five assists), and Kylmen Breeden (14 points, 11 rebounds, nine assists).