Posted: February 7, 2013
By MARK SAWYER
Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Coming off an important Northwestern District road win over Skyline Tuesday night, the James Wood girls’ basketball team had hopes of continuing to build momentum in their final regular season home game Wednesday night against Tuscarora.

Unfortunately for the Colonels, they faced off against a very big, athletic, and deep Tuscarora team. And the Huskies — the third place team in the always tough Dulles District — proved to be too much for the Colonels in a 71-57 non-district win at James Wood’s Donald H. Shirley Gymnasium. “They were big, they were athletic, they were able to handle the ball, they could see the floor and that’s the sign of a very good team,” James Wood coach Rhonda Slider said of the Huskies. “Unfortunately for us it didn’t go our way. I’m not terribly disappointed. Obviously you don’t want to lose, you wanna win — but I think our first quarter we came out and for a team that’s that good we were doing some things that we need to do and that’s a positive.”

Things could not have started much better for James Wood (11-10). After spotting the Huskies an early 5-2 lead the Colonels finished the first quarter on a 18-10 run and enjoyed a 20-15 lead after eight minutes of play.

In between quarters Tuscarora coach Michael Newkirk could be heard challenging his team, and they responded.

After hitting just two 3-pointers in the first quarter, the Huskies got hot in the second and connected for four more. Alysha Berry immediately got it started with a trey to start the quarter and cut the Colonels lead to 20-18.

Nesselrodt hit a pair of free throws to push the Colonels’ lead back to four (22-18) but then the Huskies started to take over.

Tuscarora scored four straight to tie the game 22-22. From there, however, it was all Huskies the rest of the first half.

Alexis Bailey hit the first of three more treys for the visitors sparking a 17-2 run that ended with a Zarla Comer layup with 2:13 left in the half which made it 43-28.

Wood finished the half with a 4-0 run and closed to within 43-32 at the break showing some signs of life and giving some hope for a second half comeback.

Unfortunately those hopes were short lived. Tuscarora scored the first 11 points of the third quarter and their halftime advantaged doubled to 54-32 by the five minute mark of the third.

Keiana Brooks scored eight fourth-quarter points, and Dick added four more as the Colonels outscored the Huskies 14-7 in the fourth, shaving 12 points off of Tuscarora’s biggest lead of the night before the final horn.

Dick led three Colonels in double figures with a team high 16 points. Brooks chipped in with 14 and Nesselrodt added 13.

Berry led Tuscarora with a game-high 20 points.