Raiders Defeat Wood Girls, 64-55

Posted: February 11, 2015
By ROBERT STOCKS
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Loudoun County looked at Tuesday night’s Conference 21 game against James Wood like it was a tune-up for the postseason with the conference tournament starting on Friday.

Based on how it responded to the Colonels’ fast start, Loudoun County showed that its depth can present a challenge for just about any conference opponent as the Raiders pulled away in the second quarter en route to a 64-55 girls’ basketball victory over James Wood at Shirley Gymnasium.

Freshman center Natalie Villaflor came off the bench to score a game-high 13 points, junior guard Alyssa Paige added 11 and junior center Elisabeth Gianelos also scored in double figures with 10, helping the Raiders (20-1, 6-1 conference) lock up the No. 2 seed for Friday’s conference tournament.

“Traveling this far for a game — we hadn’t done that yet so it kind of gets us in the playoff mode because we usually have to travel at least an hour to go places [in the postseason],” said Loudoun County senior Tayler Tibbits. “We knew they were a big team and we knew they were good going into it, so we wanted to get the right attitude for the playoffs.”

The Colonels (16-6, 4-3 conference), who will now be the No. 4 seed for the conference tournament, started off strong and led through almost the entire opening quarter. James Wood used a 6-0 spurt that was capped by a layup from Kaitlyn Crane after a nice pass from Dani Rizzari pushed the Colonels’ lead to 15-9.

The six-point lead slipped away once Loudoun County went to its deep bench, getting some fresh legs on the court in a fast-paced opening quarter. Villaflor scored five straight points and Hannah Brenneman knocked down a 3-pointer in the closing seconds to tie it 17-17.

The Raiders’ depth — and 3-point shooting — helped swing the momentum back to Loudoun County in the second quarter.

Tibbits’ 3-pointer to start the second ignited a 9-0 run by the Raiders. Madison Szoka also connected from 3-point range and Paige capped the run with a jumper to stretch Loudoun County’s lead to 26-17.

The Colonels suffered through a scoring drought of nearly five minutes, going just 2 for 10 from the field and committing six turnovers in the second quarter as the Raiders led 34-23 at the half.

“One [bad] quarter is all it takes,” James Wood coach Krista Crites said. “I think the second quarter they started running the floor and we did not get back in transition — they beat us 17-6 in the second quarter.

“Other than that we played right there with them so maybe it was a little bit of fatigue there. We’re not used to playing teams who sub five in and five out and run up and down the court. Considering what depth we have we do great, but that was probably the best team we’ve seen all year.”

Eight different Loudoun County players scored in the first half and the Raiders’ reserves accounted for 13 points.

“They got off to a nice start and we had to come back and then they had to come back,” Loudoun County coach Derek Fisher said. “Good teams are going to make runs. Part of our process is to play like that in games like that.”

And both teams showed their quality in the second half.

The Colonels trailed by as many as 18 points after Brenneman knocked down her third — and the team’s seventh — 3-pointer to put the Raiders ahead 48-30.

With the Colonels needing a spark, sophomore Amanda Christian came off the bench and knocked down a pair of 3-pointers, helping James Wood trim the deficit to 53-40 heading into the fourth quarter.

Christian, who came off the bench to score 11 points (all in the second half), knocked down her third 3-pointer to cut the Raiders’ lead to six, and Brooks hit the second of two free throws to cut Loudoun County’s lead to 55-50 with 4:12 left.

But that proved to be as close as the Colonels could get as Villaflor scored eight in the fourth quarter, connecting on two free throws and then giving the Raiders a double-digit lead at 63-53 with 1:30 left.

“I try to contribute any way I can,” Christian said. “The team fought and we worked hard. [This game] definitely pushed us to play our best. We never lose fight — and that’s the biggest thing.”

The Raiders’ bench outscored James Wood’s 30-13.

Fisher said he liked how his team responded after James Wood made a run in the fourth quarter.

“We thought maybe we could take advantage of our depth and get the pace going pretty fast there [in the opening quarter] and to their credit they made some great runs to get themselves back in the game,” he said. “It was a really good game for four quarters.

“[This win] is important because it puts us as the second seed but also it’s the time of year where you need to start playing well against good teams for four quarters.”

Senior center Sarah Johnson scored a team-high 12 points and had seven rebounds, and Brooks finished with nine points, a team-high 12 rebounds, seven assists and four steals for the Colonels. Crane scored nine (all in the first half), and Rizzari added seven points and tied Brooks with a team-best seven assists.

Despite the loss, Crites hoped her team — which has more wins than any James Wood team in the past 15 years — can regroup after facing a quality opponent like the Raiders.

“We needed a game like this going into conference [tournament] play,” Crites said. “The previous two conference games we weren’t really challenged much but this one we needed to kind of open our eyes a little bit and realize it’s going to be a tough game every night.”

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