James Wood boys fall to Harrisonburg

Josh Dorsey Special to The Star

WINCHESTER — James Wood trailed wire-to-wire against Harrisonburg on Thursday and came up on the losing side of the scoreboard for the first time this season in a 54-44 Conference 21 West boys’ basketball clash at Donald H. Shirley Gymnasium.

The Colonels (2-1, 1-1 conference) fell behind 19-13 in the first eight minutes and pulled within four points twice in the final quarter, but could never draw even.

The Blue Streaks (2-2, 1-1) got a 3-pointer each from Kajuan Madden-McAfee, Rakweon Smith and Danny Dombrowski. The Colonels failed to make a 3-point shot in the game and not for lack of trying.

“Give them a lot of credit,” James Wood coach Tim Wygant said. “They came out with a lot of intensity and hit a couple of shots early. We had to change our defensive game plan. The change worked and we hung tight with them for most of the game but we are not a team that can come out with low intensity at the beginning of the game and put on 20 or 30 points in the fourth quarter. We just aren’t that type of team. We have to play four solid fundamental quarters and I don’t think we did that tonight.”

The Colonels came out freezing cold in the second quarter. They to score a point until Aidan Houser scored on a putback with 1:30 left in the quarter. The Colonels did rally for two more buckets in the final minute to finish the half down 27-19.

“Our biggest problem in the first half was that we couldn’t box out and they were getting a lot of offensive rebounds which leads to easy putbacks,” said senior Noah Sullivan, who led the Colonels with 13 points. “Honestly tonight we couldn’t hit the side of a barn when it comes to 3-point shooting and that is something we are going to have to work on in practice. If we could have just gotten two of those threes to fall tonight, it’s a whole different game.”

“I would definitely say it is a tough shooting night,” Wygant said. “It is very tough to win a basketball game when you shoot 25 percent from the field and that’s pretty close to what we were. That is definitely something we have to fix right now. We haven’t shot well from the outside all season and teams are going to continue to guard like Harrisonburg did if we can’t hit shots from the outside. I would.”

Defensive intensity fueled a James Wood rally to start the second half as the Colonels kept Harrisonburg off the board to cut the deficit to 29-25. But the Blue Streaks answered with second-chance lay-ins and a 3-pointer from Dombrowski to extend the lead back to 34-25.

The Colonels came out in the fourth period and immediately attacked the Blue Streaks’ lead. James Wood got a quick two points from Cameron Firebaugh and two more from Sam Costin in a 5-0 run to cut the Harrisonburg lead to 34-30.

Harrisonburg stayed ahead thanks to open looks for Christian Whitelow and the Colonels hurt themselves from the foul line, making just 7 of 15 in the final period. An 8-2 run pushed the margin back to 42-32 with a little more than three minutes remaining.

James Wood continued to get 3-point looks, but just missed. Many of the attempts appeared to be halfway down in the basket before rattling out.

Dombrowski led all scorers with 16 points. Smith netted 10, while Whitelow and Madden-McAfee added eight each.

Firebaugh and Costin netted eight points each for the Colonels. Houser notched seven points.

“James Wood is an outstanding team,” Harrisonburg coach Don Burgess said. “I think Tim does an outstanding job with his guys. They can shoot it and they’ve been playing well with a few big wins. We hit a couple of shots early. In the past, Harrisonburg High School has not been able to knock down 3-pointers but Dan Dombrowski did a good job to open up the defense along with Rakweon Smith. ... I know James Wood shoots the ball really well but they did not hit many shots and they are capable of that. We got lucky a little bit. I think the rim got a little smaller for them.”