Colonel Girls Sprint Past Titans For 58-44 Victory

Posted: December 9, 2014
By JERRY HOLSWORTH
Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — The James Wood girls’ basketball team exploded for 20 points in the third quarter behind a pair of 3-pointers from junior Keiana Brooks and senior Danielle Rizzari, then coasted to a decisive 58-44 win Monday over Dominion.

The win extended the Colonels’ winning streak to two to begin the season. The Titans, who had trouble all night against an aggressive Wood defense, dropped to 2-2.

The Colonels took advantage of two recurring Titan problems to jump ahead early in the contest. Dominion missed its first four shots from the field, allowing Wood to take an early 4-0 lead thanks to a pair of jumpers by Rizzari and senior Morgan Duncan.

“I thought that we had too many turnovers (nine), but it’s also the beginning of the season and those things tend to happen,” said Colonel coach Krista Crites. “Overall, though, I thought that we looked really good. We just need to put four quarters together, and I think we’ll be able to do that later in the season.”

Although the Titans were just 3 of 13 from the field in the opening period, it wasn’t just shooting that did in Dominion. The Titans also committed five turnovers during the quarter.

With Wood shooting a respectable 50 percent from the field, the Colonels were able to push their lead to 14-10 heading into the second quarter.

Things went from bad to worse for the Titans in the second as they added poor free-throw shooting to their list of woes. Dominion hit just 1 of 4 shots from the line, and managed just 2 of 8 from the field during the quarter.

“We did struggle in the first half,” said Titan coach Sonny Green. “We didn’t run our offense as good as we should have.”

Wood’s defense also played havoc on the Titans, causing nine Dominion turnovers during the second quarter.

“We’re fast, and that’s our biggest strength,” Crites said. “We aren’t very tall though. We expect a lot of teams to be bigger than us this year. We intend to use our speed, our ball handling, and our poise to overcome that. Thus far it’s worked.”

While the Titans were faltering, several of the Colonels put in excellent performances during the second quarter. Rizzari continued to find the basket at critical times, hitting a 3-pointer and Brooks also scored on a 3-pointer and added another two baskets to Wood’s total in the period.

Duncan, who scored five points in the first quarter, added a pair of free throws in the second quarter. She, along with Rizzari and Brooks, finished with seven points each for the half.

Emily Woods-Hulse wasn’t far behind, coming off the bench in the second quarter to score six points.

With the Colonels clicking on both ends of the court, they held a commanding 34-16 at intermission.

To Dominion’s credit, it rallied in the second half and, although unable to overtake Wood’s big lead, did manage to hold its own with the Colonels.

“I was really proud of our girls in the second half,” Green said. “They came out and worked hard to overcome some of the adversity we had in the first half. We started out slow, but we eventually calmed down and did what we had to do to keep the game from getting completely out of hand.”

The key to the Titan resurgence was their ability to reduce their turnovers. Dominion, which had 13 turnovers in the first half, only committed seven in the second half.

The Colonels were only able to outscore the Titans by two points in the third quarter, primarily thanks to the pair of 3-pointers by Brooks and Rizzari.

But it was the final quarter where the Titans showed the most resilience behind Lila Najmyar. After scoring just one point through the first three quarters, the Titan sophomore nailed three 3-pointers during the final eight minutes of play.

Baily Hartzel also had an excellent fourth quarter for Dominion, scoring five of her team-high 13 points.

Wood played its reserves through most of the final quarter, and post player Grace Greene kept the Titans at bay by scoring six of her 12 points in the final quarter.

Rizzari led the Colonels with 13 points. Brooks finished the night with 12.