Millbrook Girls Edge James Wood In 21A Semifinals

Posted: February 18, 2016
By MARK SAWYER
Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Any coach will tell you that they want and hope their team is playing their best ball at the end of the season, heading into the playoffs.

After a 5-5 start, the Millbrook High School girls’ basketball team had questions to solve. They quickly found the solution, .

Since a two-game losing streak towards the end of December the Pioneers closed out the regular season with 12 straight wins, taking the title and the top seed in the Conference 21A Tournament.

Millbrook’s first postseason test came Wednesday night in the Conference 21A semifinals against James Wood, a team the Pioneers beat twice during the regular season.

In the first half the Pioneers built as much as a 13-point lead and extended that to 22 points late in the third but had to hold off a furious fourth quarter rally and were able to finally breath a sigh of relief with a hard fought 70-64 victory at James W. Casey Gymnasium.

“James Wood is one of those teams that it doesn’t matter how much they’re down they’re going to fight and scrap to get back into it”, Millbrook coach Kevin Barr said. “We got that big lead and we got a little complacent, they turned it up a notch and we didn’t. They made plays down the stretch to make it tighter than it should’ve been but you can’t say enough about them to get back in the game.

With the victory, the Pioneers host another Frederick County rival Sherando in the championship game at 5:45 p.m., tonight. Third-seeded Sherando bounced No. 2 Woodgrove 52-38.

Millbrook (18-5) never trailed against James Wood, but for most of the night it was far from easy.

The Pioneers opened the game with a 9-2 run and quickly built the lead to nine (14-5). Wood was able to trim the lead to six on a couple of occasions but the Pioneers held a 21-10 lead after one period of play.

Sophomores Erika Reed and Haile McDonald led the way in the first quarter, as they did all night. Each scored eight points in the first and both finished with 22 points.

“We’re very happy with the way we played”, Erika Reed said. “I think it was an all around good team win. I feel like when it came down to it at the end we all bared down and got done what we needed to, not individually but we came together as a team.”

Early in the second quarter, the Pioneers pushed the lead to 13 on two different occasions, first on a short jumper by Reed (25-12) and than moments later on an offensive stickback by Emily Teese to make it 27-14.

Wood (14-8) answered with a 10-3 run to get back into the game. A 3-pointer by Karmen Grimes and a three-point play by Grace Greene pulled the Colonels to within 30-24 with 3:48 left in the first half. Millbrook was able to weather the rally and led 38-30 at halftime.

Wood’s Amanda Christian buried a 3-pointer open the third closing the gap to 38-33. With the score 40-35, the Colonels’ offense went into a deep freeze.

Lauren Reed hit a pair of free throws for the Pioneers and followed that up with a fast break layup that sparked a 19-2 run and propelled them to 59-37 lead with 2:37 left in the third.

James Wood fough back again. Keiana Brooks nailed a long 3-pointer that not only stopped the Pioneers run but sparked a 10-0 run for Wood to end the quarter and close the gap to 59-47. Christian scored six of the 10 points during the stretch.

Just under a minute into the fourth Christian drilled another 3-pointer to pull Wood to within 59-50.

Trialing 67-58 after a short jumper by Erika Reed with three minutes left, the Colonels made their final push.

Hannah Arnold scored in the paint, making it 67-60 with 2:49 left. After a timeout by each team and a Millbrook missed free throw, Green and Brooks scored on back-to-back layups that made it 67-64 with 1:08 left.

Though the Pioneers only hit 1-of-6 free throws in the last two minutes they were able pull down enough rebounds and make defensive plays to secure the win.

Erika Reed made a free throw to push the lead back to four and McDonald scored on a layup with 42 seconds left to make it a six-point game.

“We were down 20 some points. That’s the joy of my kids, I don’t quit and they don’t quit”, James Wood coach Krista Crites said. Greene led the way for the Colonels with 17 points and Christian added 14 to lead the scoring. Brooks had a triple-double with 13 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds while Arnold had a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds.