Warrior boys rally against Wood

By David Selig
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Facing a 12-point deficit at halftime of Saturday night’s Northwestern District final, Sherando boys’ basketball coach Garland Williams said his goal was to cut the margin in half by the end of the third quarter.

Apparently he was selling his players short.

Sherando nailed its first seven shots of the third quarter — four of them from 3-point range — and just five minutes and five seconds into the period, the Warriors had scored 20 points and taken the lead.

Sherando then survived a heart-pounding, back-and-forth fourth quarter to defeat James Wood 64-61 at a packed Donald H. Shirley Gymnasium, securing the Warriors’ first district tournament title since 2002.  “Good thing we have two halves,” said Williams, whose Warriors will host the Colonels in a Region II Division 4 quarterfinal Tuesday night. “Like any coach tells their team, you’re not going to get it all back in one quarter — for the most part.”

But that’s exactly what the third-seeded Warriors (11-10) did after coming out of the locker room trailing 40-28.

Senior James Bowens sparked the run, driving for a three-point play on the first possession of the second half.

Bowens hit a 3-pointer 39 seconds later, and when Tanner Wise followed with another three, the Warriors were all of a sudden within five.

A three-point play by Charles Hudnall had Sherando within two with 4:26 left in the third quarter, and Bowens’ corner 3-pointer over Trae Tinsman gave the Warriors a 45-44 lead with 3:44 on the clock.

Daniel Nichols, who banked in a shot earlier in the period, capped the 20-4 run with a 3-pointer with 2:55 still remaining in the quarter.

“That was unbelievable,” said Bowens, who led Sherando with 19 points and eight rebounds. “I have never seen [us shoot like that]. It was crazy.”

Sherando’s lead reached five points when Dominique Porter hit the team’s fifth 3-pointer of the period with 55 seconds left, but Chris Skinner answered with his own three to keep the fourth-seeded Colonels (10-13) within a bucket heading into the fourth.

Tinsman scored nine of his game-high 21 points in the final quarter, including a tough pull-up over Bowens to put James Wood back in front 56-55 with 2:03 remaining. Tinsman spun past Bowens for a layup with 1:09 left, again pulling his team ahead by one.

Sherando center Terry Wood hit two free throws after hauling in an offensive rebound to put the Warriors ahead.

Following a timeout, James Wood was just starting to run its offense when Sherando’s Phil Root burst in to make a steal. He finished on the other end, plus drew a blocking foul on Skinner and completed a three-point play from the line.

“It was all about heart and desire,” said Root, looking down at a championship plaque in his hands outside the locker room. “We wanted this more, I guess.”

Root was a pest all game at the defensive end, coming off the bench to block three shots to go along with the steal. The senior also scored seven of his 11 points in the final period.

But after Root’s three-point play finally made it a two-possession game at 62-58, he fouled Tinsman in the act of shooting a 3-pointer with 22 seconds left.

Tinsman made all three free throws, and when Bowens hit just one of two on the other end, the Colonels took a timeout to draw up a play, trailing by two with 12.9 on the clock.

The smiles on the faces of the players in the James Wood huddle hinted that the Colonels weren’t looking forward to a potential overtime.

“As a coach, I’m thinking let’s go for the tie and go to OT,” Colonels coach Al Smith said. “But they wanted to go for the win.

“We had a play that I know gets us a clean look for a three. We didn’t really wind up executing it the way we needed to, so we didn’t get that open look that we needed. But, it’s a one possession game with 10 seconds to play. That’s what you want in a championship basketball game.”

When the play failed, Tinsman wound up taking a deep three over a closely guarding Bowens that rimmed out.

Wood — who only played four minutes and 16 seconds in the second half because of foul trouble — grabbed the rebound, and he made one free throw with 2.9 seconds left.

Trailing by three and needing to go the length of the court, Tinsman played quarterback, and scrambled up the baseline, but Bowens intercepted his inbounds pass at midcourt and began the celebration.

“I don’t know, it just seemed unreal for a second that the ball was coming my way,” Bowens said. “I just had to go over and grab it. I was so ready for the game to be over.”

It was a tough way for the Colonels to end a gutty three-day run through the district tournament.

They had built an early lead by forcing 12 Sherando turnovers in the first half and connecting on 15 of 18 first-half free throws (including nine of their first nine).

But the Colonels turned it over six times in the fourth quarter — after only having two giveaways to that point — and Sherando made just a few more big plays in a game that Root called “nerve-racking.”

Smith applauded his team’s effort and said the Colonels are without a doubt looking forward to Tuesday night’s rematch in Stephens City.

But after a season in which no team in the district created any separation from the pack (Sherando, Handley and Skyline shared the regular season title), the Warriors finally stood alone as they hugged and posed for photographs following the win.

“It’s a really proud moment for the Sherando basketball program,” Williams said.

NOTE: Tinsman was voted the district’s player of the year by the coaches. He was joined on the all-district first-team by Bowens, Wood and Mitch Smith and Jeremiah Wilson of Handley.

Devin Call (Millbrook), Cliff Woodard (Skyline) and James Wood’s Mason Smith, Brock Lockhart and Skinner were named to the second team.

Williams was voted Division 4 Coach of the Year, while Sonny Dyke of Skyline received the honor amongst the district’s Division 3 coaches.