Judges Boys Answer The Call, Beat Wood 60-51

Posted: January 31, 2014
By KEVIN TRUDGEON

WINCHESTER — Ten feet from the basket with his right hand held high in the air, Cameron Jackson let everyone in the gym know exactly what he wanted Thursday night with a loud, “Give me the ball!”

The ensuing pass, baseline move and layup was only worth two points, but the magnitude of Jackson’s audible frustration and his solution to the problem would end up making all the difference for the Handley boys’ basketball team.

Starting with their 6-foot-8 senior’s drive to open the fourth quarter, the Judges proceeded to score 14 straight points and pull out a 60-51 win over James Wood at Shirley Gymnasium.

“I was just trying to make sure it didn’t happen again like it did against Millbrook, because if we go on a two-game slide that hurts things in the long run,” said Jackson, referring to Handley’s 68-56 loss to the Pioneers on Tuesday.

“I was just trying to do whatever I could to get us back the lead and I know that getting the ball inside was what we needed to do. Whether I scored or dished it off to somebody else, we just needed to get the ball inside to get the lead back.”

That exactly what Handley (10-2, 3-1 Northwestern District) did over the first six minutes of the period to erase a four-point deficit it faced to start the fourth quarter.

Senior Jason Morgan completed a three-point play off a rebound to give the Judges the lead back at 47-46, fellow senior Solomon Finley followed up a Jackson miss with a putback and Jackson caught a bullet pass from Finley in the paint for a basket and a foul.

By the time KeSean Robinson (nine points and seven steals) scored on a move inside and Morgan (13 points and five rebounds) and Finley (eight points and nine rebounds) hit three of four free throws, the Judges held a 56-46 lead with less than three minutes to play.

“I thought we started out the game pretty good, then all of a sudden we got away from what we’re supposed to do, but we finally decided to start playing there in the fourth quarter and that was the difference,” said Handley coach Jason Toton. “We’ve been telling them that we’ve got a kid who’s 6-8 under the basket, you’ve got to give him the ball. And when he decides he wants the ball and he puts his mind to it, he can be unstoppable.”

Jackson, who finished with a game-high 22 points and 15 rebounds, certainly was unstoppable at times Thursday, but for the first three quarters it was James Wood (10-7, 3-2) that held the upperhand.

Coming off a loss of their own on Tuesday — 67-57 to Sherando — the Colonels packed it in on defense and dared the Judges to shoot from the outside.

The strategy worked well as Handley struggled at times to penetrate the zone defense and James Wood took advantage on the other end.

Senior Camden Butler (team-high 16 points) hit four 3-pointers in the first half, including a pair during a 10-0 run late in the second quarter, and the Colonels took a 36-34 lead into halftime.

Coming out in the third quarter James Wood continued to hound the Judges, scoring 10 of the last 12 points and getting a big 3-pointer from senior Nick Goode just before the buzzer to go up 46-42 heading to the fourth quarter.

“I thought we played great over the first three quarters, we were moving the ball and getting good looks,” said senior Ryland Williams, who filled up the stat sheet with nine points, eight rebounds, six assists and five steals before fouling out. “But you have to play a full game and we didn’t do that. Handley’s a tough team and we didn’t come out strong in the fourth quarter like we did in the first three and they came out and were hitting shots.”

A free throw by Goode (10 points and five rebounds) finally ended the Colonels’ drought with 1:59 to go in the game, and a layup from Goode off a Williams’ offensive rebound would draw James Wood to within seven at 56-49.

But Butler and Williams each missed shots the next time down the court and Morgan found a wide-open Finley under the basket to break the Colonel press and put the game out of reach.

“We went cold and we got away from what we had a lot of success with in the first three quarters,” said James Wood coach Tim Wygant. “We had hurried possessions ... and they’re a very strong defensive rebounding team, and when the happens and they limit us to one shot and we’re not getting the kind of shots that we’re used to getting that can transition into a pretty substantial run and that’s what happened.”

Jackson insisted he was just trying to get his team going with his call for the ball to start the fourth quarter, but the run it sparked could not have come at a better time for Handley.

“We needed that win so bad because after losing to Millbrook I know they felt great about it and other teams started to think that we were going to be worse than what we were,” Jackson said. “So we just had to come out tonight and prove to everybody that we could still play and that we’re going to make sure a game like that doesn’t happen again.”

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