James Wood girls drop OT thriller to Martinsburg

WINCHESTER — Young and talented teams are often very exciting to watch play and grow.

The James Wood girls’ basketball team is going to be exciting this season, and for the next few years to come, but with youth comes inexperience and growing pains.

That youth cost the Colonels an opportunity for a huge win over Martinsburg (W.Va.) in their season opener Wednesday night.

Wood led throughout the contest and held a four-point lead with 14 seconds left in regulation only to see that advantage slip away. With two senior starters on the bench having fouled out in regulation, the Colonels ran out of steam and dropped a frustrating 69-62 decision to the Bulldogs at Wood’s Donald H. Shirley Gymnasium.

“I thought our defense was very good, I thought we did a nice job keeping their one big out [of the lane],” James Wood coach Krista Cates said. “When you have two of your starters foul out and you have to go with a freshman lineup it hurts. The good thing about that is as inexperienced and as young as we are — to only lose by seven in overtime to a really good West Virginia AAA team — I’m excited with that. I’m OK with that. I don’t like losing, but I saw a lot of positives and I saw a lot of things we can build on. Three of our five starters had double figures.”

Wood (0-1) led throughout the first half after senior Hannah Arnold’s 3-pointer gave the Colonels an early 5-2 lead. Wood held one point leads at the end of both the first (10-9) and second quarters (21-20).

The second half was back and forth with the biggest lead for either team being a pair of five-point leads for the Colonels in the third quarter. Wood outscored the Bulldogs 11-10 in the third quarter and held a 32-30 lead, but then the offenses started lighting it up, scoring 46 points in the fourth period.

Wood freshman Makayla Firebaugh hit a pair of free throws to open the fourth and give the Colonels a 34-30 advantage.

Martinsburg (1-0) roared right back behind the long distance shooting of senior Caley Arndt. Arndt scored nine of the Bulldogs’ next 10 points on three consecutive 3-pointers, the last giving the Bulldogs a 40-39 lead with 5:40 left in the game.

The Colonels followed that up with a 10-5 run and matched their biggest lead of the fourth quarter on Amber Wooldridge’s three-point play. Wooldridge’s free throw gave Wood a 49-45 lead with 3:09 left.

Arndt struck again and buried the last of her six 3-pointers with 2:30 left to play and pulled the Bulldogs back to within 49-48.

From there, Wood had a chance to salt the game away from the free-throw line, but over the last 2:19 of regulation could only hit 5-of-10 attempts.

Even with the struggles, the Colonels looked to be in excellent shape for the victory. Senior Randi Pusey hit a free throw with 1:04 left to make it 52-48.

Martinsburg’s Cameron Awkard hit a pair of free throws with 28 seconds to play trimming the deficit to 52-50, but Firebaugh answered that with a pair of her own to push the lead back to four at 54-50 with just 16 seconds left.

Then the unthinkable happened to the Colonels.

Awkard drove the lane, scored and was fouled with just 8.5 seconds remaining. Her free throw was no good, but Martinsburg’s Kylie Roberts grabbed the rebound and immediately went back up. She was also fouled and knocked down both of her free throws to tie the score at 54-54 and send the game to overtime.

In the overtime period, Awkard got the Bulldogs off to a quick start, scoring her team’s first five points and pushing the Bulldogs out to a 59-56 lead with just over three minutes left.

Each time Wood got to within striking distance, the Bulldogs answered to extend the lead just enough to keep it out of reach of the young Colonels.

James Wood got as close as 61-60 on a three-point play by freshman Jennifer Kerns with 2:08 left. Martinsburg closed out the game on an 8-2 run.

“This is my first win with the girls, I just took over the program in March so there have been a lot of changes,” Martinsburg coach Kyle Triggs said. “It’s tough when you go against it in practice but there’s nothing like a real game. The girls battled and showed patience, it’s just a great win to start our season.

“The one thing we stress with our girls is the next play and they showed that tonight. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot but we kept battling and stayed the course. Everybody was all in. It was a great win for the girls, and I’m excited for them. It was a total team effort and win.”

Awkard finished with a game high 23 points to lead the Bulldogs. Arndt chipped in with 20 and Deaira Hairston finished with 11. Firebaugh played the entire game and led the Colonels with 22 points. Arnold followed her up with 14 and Wooldridge had 12.

“We just gave it away at the end, too many turnovers at the end,” Crites said. “When you turn it over against a good team that’s what’s going to happen. I think they know they can be good. They’re upset with the loss obviously but they’re proud of how they played. They played with heart and they played hard. They hustled the entire time, it’s just the inexperience showed at the end.”