Handley, James Wood both want improvements after Judges' win

WINCHESTER — Two boys' teams seemingly headed in different directions clashed Friday when Handley faced James Wood at Shirley Gymnasium.

The Judges had won three straight and had climbed into second place in the Class 4 Northwestern District, while the Colonels had dropped four consecutive and had fallen to third in the league race.

When the final buzzer sounded, the two teams continued on those paths, but neither coach was particularly happy following the Judges' 51-40 victory.

Demitri Gardner, who missed an earlier-season 34-30 loss against the Colonels, netted a game-high 23 points for the Judges, but head coach Jason Toton was disappointed by several facets from his squad.

“I was pleased with how we had been playing, but tonight I don't think we did a lot of things right,” Toton said. “We didn't communicate. We didn't focus coming out of timeouts and we didn't do assignments and execute offensively and defensively as I would have liked.

“Hopefully, we'll learn from our mistakes here and we can fix them. Like I told them, 'It's going to come down to where we don't execute and do things right and it's going to bite us in the butt.'”

Toton's words proved prophetic a day later as the Judges (11-9, 8-4) dropped a 48-45 decision at Fauquier.

James Wood coach Tim Wygant held a long postgame meeting with his players to talk about getting back on the track that saw his club win 10 of 11 games before the current skid.

“It's been a little trying,” said Wygant, whose club has lost a pair of last-second games in the last two weeks. “We need to refocus and rediscover our identity. We just had a long talk in there to see where we are going. How good do these guys want to be? How far do they want to go? We need to find ourselves again.”

Wygant points to several things that have changed for his club. “We were extremely well-prepared at the beginning of the season and we had a lot of enthusiasm and energy. I'm not saying we don't have that now, but a lot of teams have caught up with the way we have been playing. We need to elevate our game, focus and concentration more in order to be competitive.”

Friday's game was competitive for a quarter as the two teams were tied 11-11 after the first eight minutes. But Gardner and Chaz Lattimore combined for four points each as Handley used an 8-0 run to start the second quarter and take the lead for good. The Colonels (11-8, 6-5) made just one basket from the floor in the period as the Judges grabbed a 23-14 halftime lead.

Gardner, who had 10 points in the half, said he was happy to be playing after having had to watch from the bench during the first meeting between the teams.

“It was amazing,” said Gardner said of making an impact. “This is one of the games I had on my calendar ready because I didn't get to play last time and they beat us. I definitely had to come in and make a difference.”

Gardner scored the Judges' first seven points in the third quarter as the lead grew to 30-18.

“He's an outstanding player,” Wygant said of Gardner, who entered the contest leading the area with a 23.1 scoring average. “The game plan against Handley should always be to stop Demitri. … I think we did a fair job guarding him and he is going to get his. What we really needed to do was concentrate on the rebounding.”

That's where Jayden Vardaro and Stephen Daley made their impact and Handley needed it.

The Judges' offense started standing around watching Gardner and the pace with which Handley wanted to play slowed significantly.

“We wanted to speed the game up,” Toton said. “At times, we did it. And at times, we didn't. We stood around a lot when [Gardner] had the ball and the last few games we hadn't done that.”

With Gardner on the bench and the lead sliced to 30-22, Vardaro stepped forward. He grabbed an offensive board and scored, then followed up a pair of his own misses with another stickback. Another bucket by Emerson Ferguson pushed the Judges' lead back to 36-22 and they closed the quarter with a 38-23 lead.

“It's very important,” Vardaro said of providing offense when Gardner is on the bench and off it. “When our best scorer is off the floor, we have to step up and score. And say if he is getting double-teamed, we have to got make sure we get the ball and make sure we can go to the basket so that they have to guard everybody.”

Daley delivered early in the fourth quarter as his three straight inside buckets offset a pair of James Wood 3-pointers that kept the lead at 15 points (44-29).

“Vardaro [10 points] stepped up big today,” Toton said. “He and Stephen have been really getting after it inside the paint the last few days and they've been getting more confident. They've improved dramatically from Day 1. They're starting to figure some things out. … All I need those two guys to do is when a shot goes up is go get a rebound, put it back in and be physical. They are men down there.”

Daley, a sophomore, had limited varsity experience last season and Vardaro, a junior, had none. Both are standout football players.

“To start off the season, we're both not really comfortable with doing that,” Vardaro said of the physical play. “... Throughout the season, we've gotten more comfortable with every single game. Once we got to our comfortable spot, it started getting easy for us. Get rebounds, go back up and get points.”

“I was proud of Jayden,” Gardner said. “He did what he needed to do tonight. I told him coming into this game that we needed a double-double. Stephen is a monster and he can be way better.”

Despite a big fourth quarter from Jerome McCarthy (10 points) James Wood couldn't but a big dent in the Judges' lead. They got as close as 48-40 on a basket by James Cornwell (nine total points) with 23 seconds left.

McCarthy had a strange game, scoring nine points in the first quarter, 10 in the last and nothing in between.

“He's a good player,” Wygant said. “That's another thing we have to put on our guards a little bit — to find the hot player and make them focus on that. [Jerome] has been able to do it all season, except when he got his knee banged up [in the first meeting with Handley] and had to hobble around for two weeks or so. He's scoring the ball well.”

While Millbrook (10-1 district) seems to be headed to the regular-season title, Handley and James Wood are scrapping to finish with a good seed heading into a tournament where no upsets would surprise anyone.

Toton says the Judges have got to improve their communication if they want to survive.

“I wrote three things on the board today,” Toton said. “Our No. 1 thing every day is we have to communicate. If we want to be able to switch defenses up, we have got to communicate those things. At times tonight, we had some guys playing zone and some playing man. You are going to get exposed when you do that.”

Gardner, the only returning starter from last year's district title team, agrees. “At the beginning of the season, we had no communication because it was like a whole new team,” the junior said. “We're getting better at it now, but we're definitely nowhere where we should be.”

Wygant believes his club can turn it around with its three remaining district games. “Oh, 100 percent,” he said. “That's the expectations and they expect themselves to as well. They have to find their way a little bit. Adversity is not a bad thing. Adversity tests your mettle and how you've grown as an individual and as a team. As long we can respond well to this, our best basketball is still yet to come.”

Fauquier 48, Handley 45

WARRENTON — Handley had its four-game winning streak snapped by Fauquier.

The Judges fell behind 14-4 after one quarter, but led 35-34 heading into the final period. Fauquier's Thurman Smith had six points as the Falcons (9-8, 5-7) rallied to the triumph.

Leaders — Handley: Gardner 20 points, Vardaro 13 points; Fauquier: Smith 15, Hunter Lamper 13, Devin Lewis 10.

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