Colonel Boys Rout Clarke, 57-29

Posted: December 15, 2014
By JERRY HOLSWORTH
Special to The Winchester Star

James Wood freshman guard Chandler Brooks (left) scored 16 points in the Colonels’ 57-29 win over Clarke County. (Photo by Scott Mason/The Winchester Star)
WINCHESTER — James Wood gave Clarke County’s boys’ basketball team a lesson in humility, crushing the Eagles 57-29 in Saturday’s non-district contest.

In fairness to Clarke County, most of the lesson was the result of self-inflicted wounds.

The Eagles began the contest with 12 first-quarter turnovers that led to 17 Colonel field goal attempts and 16 points in the period. Those turnovers also prevented Clarke County having many field goal opportunities of its own, and the few the Eagles had only resulted in a lone field goal by Joshua Wallace during the period.

“Our defense was flying to the basketball and that’s what you want to see,” Wood coach Tim Wygant said. “When you do the right things on defense, the result speaks for itself. I thought that we trapped well today. We’ve got a young group, but they’re very energetic, and we also have a core of excellent senior leadership this year.”

While the Eagles were unable to generate anything positive on either end of the court, Wood center Branson Ratlief had a field day in the paint. The Colonel senior connected on 11 of his game-high 24 points in the opening quarter. Ratlief alone scored just five points less than Clarke County’s entire team for the game.

“We were just trying to get the ball to the hot hand today and I guess that was me,” Ratlief said. “I thought that we did a good job of sharing the ball. I was able to get good position in the paint, and my teammates really set me up with some good passes.”

The Eagles did rally in the second quarter, cutting their turnovers from 12 to five, and getting 13 shots off from the field. Sean McDonald, who is less than 50 points away from the 1,000 point mark for his career with Clarke County, led the Eagle resurgence with eight second-period points.

Sean McDonald’s efforts, however, did little to cut into Wood’s big lead. Colonel guard Chandler Brooks was also having a good night too, scoring nine first half points for Wood. With Ratlief adding another five points to his total during the period, the Colonels led comfortably 27-14 at the half.

After a respectable 12-point second quarter, Clarke County regressed in the second half with more poor shooting. Hitting just 1 of 14 attempts during the third period, the Eagles shot just 4 of 27 during the second half.

“I thought that we had plenty of opportunities to score,” Eagle coach Brent Emmart said. “But we had 27 turnovers and we missed a lot of layups today. Their defense also took us out of our game early and we never really recovered.”

To make matters worse, Ratlief again dominated the paint during the third period, scoring another eight points.

“When you have a player like Ratlief you’re going to go inside as much as you can,” Wygant said. “When you have a player with his experience and physical tools you want to give him the basketball as much as you can.”

With Wood leading by 19 heading into the final eight minutes of play, Wygant cleared the bench. That didn’t stop Clarke County’s woes though. Hitting 8 of 10 free throws, the Colonels still managed to more than double the Eagles’ points in the fourth quarter.

One Wood sub that proved his worth in the final period was McCall Toler, who hit the Colonel’s only 3-pointer during the quarter, and nailed both of his free throw attempts to finish with five points.

Sean McDonald led the Eagles with 11 points, and brother Brett McDonald finished with six.

Besides Ratlief, Brooks also had a good day, finishing in double figures with 16.

“I’m not putting this one on our players,” Emmart said. “We need to do a better job of coaching, and getting the team ready to play.”