Wood boys deal rival Sherando a district loss

By Robert Niedzwiecki
The Winchester Star

Stephens City — After an attempted exchange to James Bowens was fumbled out of bounds near the perimeter with 2:47 remaining, the 6-foot-7 center who tried to give it to him put his hands on his head.

Frustrated and away from the basket — that’s just how James Wood wanted Sherando center Terry Wood Friday night.

The Colonels’ boys’ basketball team handed host Sherando its first Northwestern District loss of the season with a 59-55 victory, and much of the credit can be assessed to a James Wood zone defense that limited Wood and the Warriors.

Sherando (7-7, 4-1 Northwestern), which now leads Handley and James Wood (6-9, 3-2) by just one game in the district standings, shot just 18 of 51 (35.2 percent) from the field. And while Wood scored a game-high 16 points, he took just seven shots and made three, as the Colonels swarmed him any chance they got. The Colonels (18 of 62) struggled from the field even more than Sherando, but eight consecutive made free throws by Trae Tinsman (15 points, nine rebounds, three steals) in the final 4:15 helped the Colonels split the season series.

“I thought the key to winning was trying to take away Terry Wood down there, try to limit what he could do under the basket,” said Colonels coach Al Smith, whose squad was victimized for 21 points — including 10 in the fourth quarter — by Wood in Sherando’s 64-56 win on Jan. 9. “I thought we did a good job.”

Even when the Colonels didn’t have time to set their zones (they mostly played a 2-3), they were in position to make key plays. Thirty seconds before Wood put his hands on his head in frustration, he seemed headed for a layup after a steal.

But Tinsman swooped in behind him for a steal of his own inside the paint with 3:15 remaining to keep the Colonels’ lead at four. It was part of a stretch in which Sherando committed four turnovers in 80 seconds.

“Our effort was there,” Sherando coach Garland Williams said. “But we were doing things we shouldn’t do, and everybody wasn’t on the same page.

“They were really active in the zone. They did a good job taking the low post away. For the most part, I thought we handled it decently, but they did slow us up a bit.”

After Garret Cunningham’s 3-pointer put James Wood up 51-47 with 3:47 left, the Warriors continued to battle but never got closer than four until a 3-pointer by Daniel Nichols (13 points) made the score 57-55 with 20 seconds left.

Nine seconds later, the Warriors essentially sealed their own fate — they fouled Tinsman. He sank both attempts — making him 8 for 8 at that point in the fourth quarter — to make it a two-possession game.

“Being the leader, you’ve got to take leadership and shoot free throws, and you’ve got to make them,” said Tinsman, who came in shooting 72 percent from the line. “That’s what you’ve got to do in clutch times like that.”

Cunningham said there’s no else on the team that he’d rather have on the line in the closing minutes.

“Getting him to the line is a good thing,” Cunningham said.

It was obvious that James Wood felt Friday’s win was a great accomplishment. Tinsman and point guard Chris Skinner leapt into an embrace after the final whistle, and the Colonels feel a win like this can take the entire team to a higher level.

After getting outscored 20-9 in the fourth quarter to lose a three-point lead in the first meeting, James Wood took a 39-38 three-quarter lead and expanded it.

“We’ve got to show the district what we can do,” Tinsman said just moments after Shenandoah University men’s basketball coach Rob Harris, whose team is shooting 58 percent from the line, congratulated him and said the Hornets could use someone like him. “We just stayed confident. We wanted to win this game. We wanted to come out, play hard, and play intense.”

Wood had nine rebounds to lead Sherando, and Brock Lockhart had 12 points and 10 rebounds for the Colonels.

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