Sherando Boys Sweep Wood

Posted: January 29, 2016
By ROBERT NIEDZWIECKI
The Winchester Star

STEPHENS CITY — It was frustrating for the Sherando boys’ basketball team to be inactive for five days because of a snowstorm after blowing a 12-point fourth-quarter lead to Handley last week, but the Warriors are feeling a lot better about themselves after passing the first test in a critical two-day stretch.

Sherando swept the season series with James Wood with a 60-54 victory on its Senior Night on Thursday, and the Warriors hope to follow that up with another victory against a Conference 21A and Northwestern District rival tonight when they travel to Millbrook.

“We were just anxious to get back in the gym and play with each other,” said point guard A.J. Outler, whose team practiced for the first time since the Jan. 21 game against Handley on Wednesday. “We just wanted to have that family bond again.

“But to actually get back on the court and win? We’re extremely excited about it. We’re just going to keep working. [Today’s] the big day. We’re ready for it.”

For the most part, Sherando (10-7, 3-2 district, 2-1 conference) was prepared for whatever James Wood (11-6, 2-3 district, 1-4 conference) threw at the Warriors on Thursday night.

With an all-senior starting lineup that doesn’t usually play together, Sherando started off slow. (The Warriors missed their first seven shots.) But they kept the Colonels in check by using the same 2-3 zone that limited James Wood in Sherando’s 57-50 win on Jan. 5. The Colonels only managed four points while holding Sherando scoreless for the first four minutes and 33 seconds, and that turned out to be James Wood’s largest lead of the game.

Sherando forced 17 turnovers out of the Colonels and held them to 14-of-37 shooting in building a 37-30 lead through three quarters.

James Wood heated up a bit in the fourth and closed to 46-42 on a three-pointer by Ben Sear with 3:05 left. But the Warriors’ press-break and free-throw shooting (Sherando made 20 of 24 free throws to James Wood’s 2 of 6) helped the Warriors pull away.

“We had a few mental lapses where we left guys open outside, but we did pretty well applying pressure, deflecting passes and getting steals,” said Outler, who along with Alex Morefield (three steals) led Sherando with 12 points Thursday.

Though Chandler Brooks (17 points, 11 rebounds, four steals) showed a lot of energy in transition for the Colonels, James Wood coach Tim Wygant said overall, the Colonels did not show the spark that had helped them win four consecutive games coming into Thursday. Wygant loudly admonished his team in a Sherando classroom after the game.

“I’m not sure if it was all the time off, I’m not sure if it was getting out of a routine, I’m not sure if it was just being lazy,” Wygant said. “We did not come with the offensive and defensive intensity that we normally bring every night, and because of that, we didn’t put ourselves in a position to win at the end.

“I feel like we did not play to our potential tonight, and [the players] know it. From a coaching perspective, it’s frustrating.”

Wygant said James Wood knew the Warriors would give them a heavy dose of their 2-3 zone, and he didn’t feel like the Colonels had proper backside rotation in attacking it. He felt they got good shots when they were patient, but that didn’t happen often enough.

Down 46-42 after that Sear 3-pointer with 3:05 left, Wygant called a timeout, and he went with the full-court trap to try and inject some energy into his team.

But James Wood couldn’t contain Outler. Outler dribbled the ball half of the court and finished from close range to make it 48-42 with 2:50 left, then found Michael Perry (10 points) for a layup 25 seconds later after breaking the press again to make it 50-42.

The Colonels would go on to create multiple turnovers over the remainder of the game (they forced 17 total), but they would not get closer than seven again until Aidan Houser (16 points) hit one of his four 3-pointers at the buzzer.

Warriors coach Garland Williams said it was definitely nice to rebound from last week’s defeat, and was glad the seniors could provide some solid contributions to it. In addition to Outler, Noah Ford scored eight points, and Isaiah Armistead grabbed six rebounds.

Now, Sherando will try and knock off Millbrook, which is undefeated in both the district and conference.

“Each game is very, very important now,” Williams said. “We’ve got two tough ones back-to-back. We know [Millbrook] will be ready for us, and hopefully we’ll be ready for them.”

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