SHERANDO BOYS TOP WOOD, 88-73

January 25, 2012
By Robert Niedzwiecki
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER- With an 18-12 lead after one quarter, the James Wood boys' basketball team couldn't have asked for a much better start to Tuesday night's Northwestern District game with Sherando at Shirley Gymnasium.

But at that point, a big 6-foot-8 question had yet to be answered. How would Warriors center Terry Wood - dressed to play but tethered to the bench - impact the game once he was finally put in?

Sherando liked the answer a lot better than James Wood.

Wood scored eight of his game-high 21 points, grabbed seven of his game-high 14 rebounds, and had all three of his blocks in a second quarter that saw the Warriors outscore the Colonels 28-12 to take a 40-30 halftime lead, and Sherando went on to an 88-73 victory.

"It was definitely frustrating," said Wood about watching his team fall behind without him. "I just wanted to get in there and help my team. I wanted to rebound and contest shots."

Contesting shots in the second quarter was contagious for the Warriors (8-9, 4-1 Northwestern), who rebounded from losses to Handley and Martinsburg (W.Va.) last week.

Sherando held James Wood (6-10, 0-4) to 4-of-25 shooting (16 percent) in the second quarter and blocked a total of five shots in those eight minutes.

The Warriors' 10-point advantage turned out to be huge, because while James Wood refused to go away in the second half (a Cam Butler 3-pointer that would have cut it to five with 2:30 left rattled out) the Colonels could never get closer than 43-40 with 5:51 left in the third.

Overall, James Wood hit just 25 of 82 shots (30.4 percent and 14 of 45 3-pointers (31.1 percent).

Essentially, once the Warriors settled into the game, they did exactly what they wanted to do.

"Mainly, put pressure on shooters," said Sherando coach Garland Williams of the team's mind-set. "... We try to put as much pressure as possible and close out on them, and just hope that they miss."

Sherando didn't start Wood or junior guard Aaron Miller - who didn't check in until the 3:56 mark in his first game back since suffering an injury against Skyline on Jan. 13.

Williams said the players who started did so because of their quickness and work in practice and that disciplinary reasons didn't figure into the opening lineup.

Still, once Miller (18 points) got warmed up - he hit a 3-pointer with 15 seconds left in the first for his first three points, leading to a seven-point second quarter for him - and Wood took the floor, Sherando seemed to finally find its rhythm.

The Warriors' defense and energy led to offense. Sophomore guard Isaiah Williams had a steal and layup to start the second quarter, sophomore guard Nathaniel Culp had a putback, and a Wood block started a fastbreak that ended with a layup from senior guard Brady Cook (18 points) to tie the game at 18 in just 64 seconds.

"The hype definitely got higher," Cook said. "When Aaron come [in] and Terry came [in] ... they're key players on the team, so when they do come in the game gets faster, people start playing together, and we just hit shots."

James Wood coach Al Smith said if not for the last four minutes of the first half, the game could have played out much differently. The Colonels surrendered an 8-0 run in the last two minutes and four seconds.

"We made some bad decisions on the offensive end, and we just didn't guard that well on the defensive end," Smith said. "It was just a poor four minutes of basketball, to be quite honest with you, and that wound up costing us.

"... We made some [bad] decisions of passing the ball long down the court, we made some bad decisions shooting 3's, and it's just those small little things [that result] in a 10-point lead right before the half."

Smith was impressed with the Colonels' fire in the third, but he was disappointed that James Wood gave up Williams' driving layup to end the quarter.

Williams's aggressiveness was a big sparkplug to end the third, as he scored all of Sherando's points in the last 1:28 to boost the Warriors' lead from six to nine points.

James Wood was led by Nick Foura (15 points), and Michael Carter and Peyton Crickman, who had nine points each.

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