Millbrook boys bounce back with rout of James Wood

By MARK SAWYER | Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — The Millbrook boys’ basketball team has lost three times this season, and each time they’ve responded with an impressive victory.

Tuesday night was the latest such performance. Following a disappointing loss on Thursday to Class 4 Northwestern District rival Handley, Millbrook returned to the floor to take on another district rival in James Wood and delivered an emphatic 69-27 win.

Millbrook broke open a close game midway through the first quarter with a 10-0 run and never looked back rolling to their 10th win of the season at Wood’s Donald H. Shirley Gymnasium.

“This was a good bounce-back game for us after that Handley game [a 75-50 defeat],” Millbrook coach Rob Harris said. “Then after that we got some weather that limited us from getting the practices in that we normally like.

“I thought we came out really strong and established ourselves on the defensive end, and that gave us a lot of good offensive opportunities. Defense did a great job tonight of locking in and making sure we took away all the primary threats. They’ve got some great shooters so we wanted to make sure we got out on them and we also wanted to make sure we cleared the glass.”

Harris said his team continues to learn.

“This game of basketball is ever changing and ever evolving and we’re going to have to get better each and every game,” Harris said. “We’re still evolving as well. We’re still changing, we’re still learning. We’re doing a great job of utilizing all of our unit and all of our talent.”

Millbrook (10-3, 4-1 district) scored the first four points of the game on consecutive baskets in the paint by 6-foot-6 post man Jalen Tyson. Tyson scored a co-game-high 13 points, 10 of those in the first quarter.

Wood (5-7, 0-3) pulled to within two points at 8-6 on a basket by leading scorer Cam Firebaugh with 5:07 left in the first.

Over the next three and a half minutes the Pioneers went on a 10-0 run, pushing the lead to double figures, and the lead never dipped below 10 the rest of the evening.

Tyson got the run started with a pair of free throws at the 4:55 mark. The next time down the floor Jordan Jackson connected on a pair of free throws.

Trammell Anthony (13 points) scored four straight for the Pioneers and Tyson finished what he started with an offensive rebound and stickback to end the run and give the Pioneers an 18-6 lead with 1:15 left in the first.

The two teams exchanged 3-pointers to end the first quarter and Millbrook enjoyed a 21-9 lead after one.

If the Pioneers offense was good Tuesday night, then their defense was phenomenal. Not once in four quarters did the Pioneers allow Wood to reach double figures. Millbrook almost scored more points in the third quarter (26) then Wood did for the game. On top of all that Millbrook held James Wood’s leading scorer Firebaugh (20 points per game coming in) to just six points on the night.

Millbrook outscored Wood 15-6 in the second quarter and was able to extend the lead to 21 (36-15) by the half led by Noah Thomas’ five second-quarter points. (Thomas also finished in double figures with 11 points.)

Any thoughts of a third-quarter James Wood comeback were quickly put to rest. The Colonels scored the first two points of the second half on a short jumper by Firebaugh to trim the deficit to 36-17 but that was pretty much the Colonels’ third-quarter offense.

The Pioneers went on a tear after that, scoring 15 unanswered points, most of which came on breakaway layups as a result of the defensive pressure. Twelve of the 15 points were on fastbreak layups, the other three were from the free throw line. In just over three minutes the Pioneers turned a 19-point lead into a 51-17 advantage.

Unfortunately for the Colonels that was only the beginning. With three minutes left in the quarter Wood ended the Pioneers run of 15 straight points with a basket in the paint, making it 51-19. The Pioneers picked right back up at that point and finished the quarter on another double-digit run, this time 11-0, to close out the third with a 62-19 cushion.

Over the last eight minutes of the game the Colonels still didn’t reach double figures for a quarter but were able to outscore the Pioneers 8-7.

“I think we did the things that we needed to do defensively for the most part in the first half. I don’t think the score necessarily indicated how we were playing,” James Wood coach Tim Wygant said. “They just made a lot more shots then we did. They’re a good basketball team. They can get out and run, they can score up and down the roster and that was pretty much the story to be honest.

“Wins are awesome, wins are terrific but you really want them to start playing basketball the right way. I’m not going to say that we got a lot better tonight but we did see some improvement. We saw some things that we liked, we saw a lot of things that we didn’t. Hopefully we can build on that. They continue to get better. A lot of it has to do with experience. We don’t have the most experienced kids but they’re learning and they’re getting better and we’ll continue to build on it.”

Ben Smith led the way for the Colonels with eight points followed by Firebaugh’s six.