Handley rallies to top upset-minded James Wood

WINCHESTER — Handley coach Zach Harrell asked his seniors to take off their jerseys at halftime.

With the third-seeded Judges trailing No. 6 James Wood by five points in a Class 4 Northwestern District quarterfinal game after just scoring four points in the second quarter, Harrell wanted to illustrate to his seniors how it would feel to never wear the Handley uniform again.

Senior Jacob Duffy followed with a speech that wasn't full of compliments.

At least one of them worked.

The Judges stormed back in the second half and knocked off the upset-minded Colonels 56-39 to advance to Tuesday's semifinals. Handley will play at No. 2 Sherando, an easy 71-34 winner over No. 7 Fauquier on Friday, with a Region 4C playoff berth on the line. at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Handley (12-9) had to fight against the No. 6 Colonels (2-16) to advance. The score was tied at 13-13 after one quarter, but the Colonels thoroughly frustrated the Judges in the second quarter. Ashton Kees' bucket just before the buzzer gave James Wood a 22-17 lead.

Harrell said when the Judges walked into the locker room he immediately asked the team's seniors (eight on the roster) to take off their jerseys.

"I said, 'How does that feel?' You've got 16 minutes to reverse that outcome," Harrell said. "I said, 'I know it doesn't feel good, but you guys have the opportunity and you've shown over the last 13 games how good you are.'"

Following that Harrell said that Duffy "chewed guys out at halftime."

"I had to," Duffy explained. "I was just talking to my teammates and saying, ‘We have to get it together. This could be the last time we ever play again. Sixteen minutes of basketball is all it is. We’re only down five. We know we can come back.’ I was just trying to motivate everybody I could.”

While the Judges were confident they could come back, they also knew a little bit about James Wood’s history. In 2019, an 0-20 James Wood team stunned Millbrook in the opening round of the district playoffs. Harrell was the Colonels head JV coach that season. Rob Harris, the father of current Judges senior Carson Harris, was the head coach at Millbrook.

“I think that was in the back of everybody’s minds,” Duffy said. “You never want to get upset in the first round. It’s a terrible feeling. It’s not how you want to go out as a senior.”

With back-to-back 3-pointers, Duffy helped the Judges get even (26-26) midway through the third quarter and from there the Judges closed the period with a 12-1 run to take control. The outburst was characterized by pressure defense and three of the baskets, including Isaiah Lavette’s putback at the buzzer, came off of offensive rebounds.

“I think the defense, everybody stepped up,” Duffy said. “We were getting back in gaps. It the first half we were letting them cut hard and they were getting in front of us and they just got easy buckets. In the second half, we were cutting harder, getting to our spots faster and helping the helper. They couldn’t score as easy on us.”

“They brought some increased pressure and we really hit a lull in the third quarter,” James Wood coach Tim Wygant said. “The game plan in the first half was really effective in terms of understanding they were going to come out and pressure us. … We really struggled in the beginning of the third quarter to get set up in our offense. Our guys were playing a little individual basketball and we kind of deviated from the game plan. … And we also missed a bunch of shots and it was difficult to recover from that.”

The Judges also missed shots, but were able to take advantage of second- and third-chance opportunities.

“Handley did an excellent job offensive rebounding,” Wygant said. “Against Handley, you need to contest the first shot and you need to rebound the heck out of the basketball. We just didn’t do that in the third quarter.”

“Tonight we weren’t hitting a lot of shots,” said Handley's Emerson Fusco, who had three putbacks and was able to get to the foul line off of offensive rebounds. “I missed a lot of layups and we were missing a lot of threes. Some players, we were missing a lot of shots so we decided we had to start crashing the boards.”

The Judges pushed their lead as high as 21 points twice (the last time at 53-32 with 2:45 remaining) in the final period, which was more of a parade of players going to the foul line and mostly misfiring. The two teams combined for 35 free throws over the final eight minutes. Handley finished 12 for 27 for the game, while James Wood was 12 for 24.

Fusco led the Judges with 17 points. Duffy had 12 of his 14 after the break. Long netted 10 and Lavette added nine.

Fusco credited Deonte Trammel’s defense on James Wood point guard Josh Borromeo as a big factor in the comeback. Borromeo scored all 11 of his points in the first half. Kees added nine for James Wood.

“Their record is deceiving,” Harrell said of the Colonels. “They really do have kids that work hard. They can penetrate and when they hit shots they are a dangerous team.”

James Wood graduates just three seniors — Cole Stowers, Jacob Roy and Bodie Pullen.

“We brought back just three returning varsity players,” Wygant said of his club. “We had a lot of young kids really respond. A lot of kids got a lot of minutes who didn’t play varsity basketball last year. A lot of them even played more than they did on the JV team last year.

“I really think the future is bright. We’ve worked on developing their confidence and their individual skills. I think they are going to be a force to be reckoned with in the next couple of years. We are going to be good.”

Handley’s immediate future involves a rubber match against Sherando. The Judges won the first meeting 61-51, while the Warriors took the second 64-60.

“It’s going to be a good dogfight,” Fusco said. “We’ve got to go in there and do what we do all of the time. We can’t start slow. If we start off slow, it could be a pretty rough night.”

— Contact Walt Moody at

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Follow on Twitter @WinStarSports1