WINCHESTER — Nine months after a heartbreaking playoff loss, Clarke County girls’ basketball’s confidence and continuity were on full display during Monday’s contest.
The Eagles entered Shirley Gymnasium with a chip on their shoulder and dominated James Wood 66-14 to earn their first win. The Colonels were also playing their first game of the season.
Senior forward Alainah McKavish led the team with 22 points, sophomore forward Paige McKavish added 16 points and senior guard Paige Stemberger contributed 10 points and five steals in the road victory.
Clarke County’s 2024-25 season came to a close when John Marshall defeated them in the Class 2 state semifinals, ending their 15-game winning streak in the process. With eight players back from last year, the Eagles looked hungry for redemption on opening night.
The most notable change for the team is that Shadd McCaw has taken over as head coach after serving as an assistant over the past three seasons. He said having so much returning infrastructure has helped make his transition seamless.
“Getting both McKavishes back, having a steady point guard in Savannah [McCaw], and having a lot of good shooters … we have eight girls back from that team that went almost to the state finals,” McCaw said. “That’s really huge. So we’re going to hinge on them and lean on them a lot to get us where we need to be.”
The Eagles played aggressive defense, utilizing traps and full-court presses to force 19 James Wood turnovers. Offensively, Alainah McKavish worked as a hub in the paint, often either scoring around the basket or passing out of double teams to find open shooters.
However, it was Stemberger who got the offense flowing early after an ugly start for both sides. Across the opening three minutes, neither team made a shot and Clarke County missed four 3-pointers.
After James Wood’s Dayana Jackson made a free throw to give her team a 1-0 lead, baskets by Alainah and McCaw made it 4-1 with 3:58 left in the first quarter. From here, Stemberger caught fire and totaled seven points and three steals, helping the Eagles go ahead 18-1 after the opening frame.
After scoring on a layup, Stemberger pressed and stole the ball, quickly finding teammate Kendall Harman for two. A possession later, she stole the ball from a rebounding James Wood defender and layed it right in.
Finally, she initiated an impressive triangle offense sequence where she passed the ball to Paige McKavish in the lane, who then kicked it out to the corner before the ball found its way back to Stemberger at the top of the key for three. This shot made it 13-1 Eagles.
Shadd McCaw said Stemberger’s ability to turn defense into offense was a big part of the team’s success.
“Defensively, we’re pretty quick at the ball, and we get a lot of traps, and we get a lot of steals, so we get a lot of run outs,” McCaw said. “We don’t play a lot of man, but when we’d have our matchup zones and [Stemberger] is matched up with her point guard, you saw what she could do for steals. It kind of got us going.”
Once Stemberger lit the spark, the McKavish sisters ensured the fire never went out the rest of the night. After another steal and score from Stemberger made it 20-3 Clarke County, Paige McKavish scored on an up-and-under between two post defenders to help bring the lead to 25-3 with three minutes before halftime.
Alainah then made a layup, before Stemberger recorded her fifth steal by snatching the ball from a James Wood rebounder and immediately finding Paige under the basket for two. The younger McKavish soon drained a three to bring the lead to 32-5 before one last quick score by the Eagles gave them a 34-5 halftime lead.
“It’s been really cool seeing her grow up and into the player she’s been,” Alainah said of her younger sister. “She’s matured a lot with the sport, so it’s really cool seeing her do that.”
Paige continued to score coming out of the locker room, tallying her team’s first four points of the half to make it 38-5. A corner three from Stemberger then gave Clarke County a 41-5 advantage with 6:24 left in the third.
Not long after a basket by the Colonels’ Malise Olah, Alainah forced a miss, grabbed the rebound and eventually received a pass from her sister on the other end and converted an and-1 to extend the lead to 44-7 with 4:32 on the clock. A few possessions later, she scored again after grabbing an offensive rebound and going up for a putback.
McKavish remained in a rhythm, scoring on all of her team’s next three possessions to finish the quarter with 11 points, making it 53-9 Clarke County through three quarters.
Though McKavish primarily scored in the third quarter, she also did a great job of avoiding turnovers throughout the night by passing out of James Wood’s double teams. McCaw said her ball-handling allowed her to create shots for herself and others.
“She’s one of our best passers, and she finds people. She’s not greedy with the basketball,” Shadd McCaw said. “She wants other people to score. So I always tell the girls that … if you pass the ball, the ball is going to come back to you. If the ball sticks, it won’t come back to you.”
The fourth quarter kicked off with a three from Harman off an assist by Savannah McCaw, followed by a bucket by a cutting Paige McKavish that made it 58-9. Steals by Harman and Alainah both led to two more layups for Paige McKavish, which furthered the lead to 62-9 with 6:34 remaining.
A three by Jackson and a made free throw from Claire Snell put four more points on the board for James Wood, which trailed 66-13 with 105 seconds left. The Colonels eventually scored one final point on a free throw from Olah.
Colonels’ head coach Joe Hall, who, like McCaw, is in his first season on the job, said his team needs “more time to gel” after an offseason where it lost a combined 25 points per game from graduates Josie Russell and Maddie Shirley.
“We have a lot of younger players that are making the transition to varsity, and it’s a different level in terms of intensity,” Hall said. “Hopefully, as the season goes on, we will continue to find people that can plug in and help fill those roles.
“They have a high-quality program over there at Clarke. They’re probably going to make it to the state finals this year. So, I looked at that as a game that we went into trying to work on some things to help us get sharp for later on in the season.”
Following its commanding win, Clarke County will host its first home game on Wednesday against Loudoun Valley at 7:30. James Wood will return to action when it hosts Strasburg on that same day and time.
— Contact Joe Tuman at jtuman@winchesterstar.com