Pioneer Boys Roll To Win Over Colonels

Posted: January 14, 2015
By KEVIN TRUDGEON
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — The Millbrook boys’ basketball team isn’t exactly trying to duplicate VCU’s trademark “Havoc” defense, but Tuesday night’s performance showed the Pioneer defense can wreak plenty of mayhem when it wants to.

Implementing a new variation of the type of full-court pressure defenses its played so far this season, Millbrook forced 25 turnovers and built a big lead in the first half on the way to a 74-49 win over James Wood on the road in Donald H. Shirley Gymnasium.

“We knew they’d seen sort of our full-court trap and we have a man-trap that we’d been running, but we switched it up with a little zone-trap today and that kind of gave [James Wood] some trouble there,” said Millbrook coach Derek Butler. “Overall we were happy with our defense, we were able to turn them over and that was the key.”

The turnovers came quickly for the Pioneers (12-2, 3-0 Northwestern District) as they raced out to a 19-point lead in the first half thanks to 14 James Wood miscues.

The Colonels (4-7, 0-3) rely on a starting backcourt of freshman Chandler Brooks (team-high 14 points and six assists, seven turnovers) and sophomore Aidan Houser (three turnovers) and the inexperience shown through early on.

While the Millbrook offense struggled to get going in the first quarter and did not allow the defense to get set, that was not a problem in the second quarter and lead began to grow.

After James Wood cut the deficit to 18-10 on a layup from senior Brady Hepner (nine points and six rebounds) off a pass from Brooks, the Pioneers scored 16 of the next 22 points, many of them coming after empty possessions for the Colonels.

An errant pass led to a layup for Millbrook senior Chris Oates (team-high 20 points), junior Trey Braithwaite found fellow junior Nick Harrell for a layup following a traveling violation, and senior Zach Harrell (19 points) added a pretty alley-oop to Oates for a layup to help push the lead to 38-19 heading into halftime.

“Did they have good pressure? Yes, but we practice against good pressure and we felt we were prepared to handle it. It was just a situation where we didn’t execute,” said James Wood coach Tim Wygant, who lamented a number of missed shots from close range in the first half for the Colonels.

“When you turn the ball over, you’re just handing the other team opportunities and that’s what happened. The majority of effective basketball is breaking pressure with the pass. We would break the initial pressure and then try to dribble through it and that got us into trouble.”

James Wood managed to pull within 14 in the third quarter thanks mainly to the play of Brooks and senior center Branson Ratlief (16 points and 10 rebounds), but the Pioneers continued to force turnovers that they quickly turned into easy points.

Three-pointers from Oates and junior Alex Amos stretched the lead back out and Millbrook closed the game on a 12-5 run that included a basket from senior Ryan Hartigan off the bench.

Junior Taryk Baylor, who has been inserted into the starting lineup after sophomore Anthony Simonelli suffered a knee injury against Loudoun Valley, finished with nine points and five rebounds, Amos accounted for four of the Pioneers’ 18 steals in the game and the team shot 50 percent (30 for 60) from the field in the win.

“We just tried to send a whole bunch of looks at them [on defense] so they can’t get used to anything,” Amos said. “I think we’re really good in transition, we can get easy buckets and then get back on defense and try to force another turnover. That’s what we want to do.”

— Contact Kevin Trudgeon at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Follow on Twitter @WinStarSports1