Late first-half run spurs Sherando boys past James Wood

WINCHESTER — Sherando’s Trey Williams grabbed James Wood’s cross-court pass out of the air on the right side of the floor with about six seconds to go in the first half, ran three-quarters of the court, and before any Colonel could reach him, he laid the ball in off the glass just before the buzzer sounded.

It was a fitting finale to an electric stretch that changed the game.

After being held to 14 points through 13 minutes and 15 seconds, the Warriors wiped out a two-point deficit with a 15-0 run over the last 2:45 of the first half. Sherando then maintained a double-digit for the entire second half and finished with a 63-43 Class 4 Northwestern District boys’ basketball win that completed a season sweep of the Colonels on Friday at Shirley Gymnasium.

Williams had eight points and an assist in the run that gave the Warriors (9-5, 3-1 district) a 29-16 lead at halftime, and finished with 20 points and nine rebounds for his fourth straight game with at least 20 points.

Williams hit a deep 3-pointer to start the run to make it 17-16, had another from well beyond the arc in which he started to dribble before stepping back and letting fly for a 25-16 lead, then hit Cassius Williams (14 points) for a layup on a fast break with 26 seconds left in the half. Cassius Williams (14 points) hit one of his two 3-pointers during the run.

“We know we can get hot pretty quick,” Cassius Williams said.

The Warriors hit 5 of 12 3-pointers in the first half and hit all three of their 3-point attempts in the second half. Overall, Sherando shot 44 percent (22 of 50) from the field.

On the other side, James Wood (3-10, 0-5) couldn’t hit much of anything. The Colonels made only 18 of 66 shots (27.2 percent) and were 2 of 18 from 3-point range.

James Wood’s shooting struggles mostly came against the zone defense it faced the majority of the game, which the Warriors turned to because of foul trouble that left them with a shortage of big men. Six-foot-4 Drew Tyson went to the bench the rest of the first half with his second foul with 1:58 left in the first quarter and 6-4 Jackson Ogle went to the bench after picking up his second foul with 7:19 to go in the second quarter. Charlie Lease (6-3) wasn’t available at all on Friday due to illness.

Shortly after Ogle went to the bench, the Warriors settled into a 2-3 zone defense for the rest of the half.

James Wood had two beautifully executed plays against the zone when Ashton Kees (16 points) caught the ball in the high post, then quickly turned and whipped the ball into Ronnie Barrett for layups underneath the basket. The last of which made it 16-14.

But James Wood would miss its last four shots of the half and commit some of its six second-quarter turnovers as the Warriors got more comfortable with the zone. Kees flashed into the high post a few more times, but Sherando either denied entry passes or prevented Kees from passing into the low post.

“We had to do a little adjusting with no big men in the 2-3,” Trey Williams said. “Then when we got rebounds, we were out running.”

The Colonels would continue to struggle against the Warriors in the second half, missing 14 of their first 17 shots. Kees finally hit James Wood’s first 3-pointer of the game with 25 seconds left in the third quarter to make it 43-28. But Josh Miller beat the third-quarter buzzer with a 3-pointer to make it 46-28, and the closest the Colonels got in the fourth quarter was on Brodie Sirbaugh’s layup that made it 55-41 with 3:49 left.

“We know they’re a good team, so we just know we can’t let off the gas,” Cassius Williams said.

“Third quarter is usually when we struggle a little bit,” Trey Williams said. “We just had to carry that momentum from the first half and build off that lead.”

James Wood coach Tim Wygant said the Colonels did not play as smart as they could have on offense.

“I think we were settling a little bit [for shots] early in possessions,” Wygant said. “I think there were opportunities to put the ball on the floor and drive, especially baseline and off [ball] reversal. We were not making them play the entire width of the floor defensively. We were taking the first available long shot instead of reversing the ball and squaring up.”

Wygant said the Colonels haven’t played against much zone defense this year, but he’s liked how they’ve played against it previously. He just felt his team missed too many open and makeable shots on Friday, whether they were from close range or outside.

“When we do see [zone], we usually break those zones by hitting some outside shots,” Wygant said. “We were really cold today. We didn’t hit any [3-pointers until late in the third quarter]. It was confounding us why the shots weren’t going in, because they were decent looks. We just weren’t making them.

“If we don’t force a team to come out of their comfort zone and guard us out on the perimeter by making some shots from the outside, the whole game is going to be challenging. A 2-3 zone or a 2-1-2 zone shouldn’t beat us as long as we’re hitting some shots from the outside and looking to get the ball inside and kick out. I think the effort was there but the execution wasn’t today.”

James Wood had some effectiveness over the remainder of the game when it went to a full-court trap with a few minutes left in the third quarter, but not enough to make a dent.

Tyson sat the last 6:41 of the third quarter after picking up his third foul, and Sherando expanded its lead from 31-16 to 46-28 in that time. Tyson reentered the game in the fourth quarter with 7:34 left and put all his stored-up energy from sitting on the bench for more than two-thirds of the game to tremendous use, scoring 12 of his 13 points in the final period.

With six minutes left, he drew Kees’ third personal foul on a turnaround jumper in the post, and Kees was also called for a technical just after the personal to give Kees four total fouls. (Wygant had yet to discuss the details of the technical with Kees as of Friday night.) Tyson hit 1 of 2 foul shots for the personal and Trey Williams made 1 of 2 for the technical to make it 50-32 Sherando, and Kees wound up sitting for the rest of the game.

Sherando coach Garland Williams said it truly was a team effort for the Warriors to play as well as they did given their foul trouble and depleted roster, and he gave credit to players like Micah Carlson for the energy and production he provided off the bench.

“We count on people to do those things that they can do well, and everyone did a good job of that tonight,” Garland Williams said.

Though there’s still a lot of season to be played, Sherando’s win moved it a game in front of Orange County (8-6) for third place in the Region 4D North. The top four teams out of the seven-school sub-region will make the playoffs.

“With the way this region thing works, each win is very important,” Garland Wiliiams said.

Ogle had seven points for Sherando. Kemper Omps had seven points for James Wood and Shaun Johnson and Barnett had six each.

Both squads are next in action on Tuesday on the road. Sherando will travel to Brentsville and James Wood will play at Liberty.

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