Girls' Basketball - Sherando's fast start too much for Wood girls

By MARK SAWYER Special to The Winchester Star

STEPHENS CITY — The opening night of district play is always much anticipated and met with enthusiasm and intensity, especially when two old rivals like Sherando and James Wood take the court.

Tuesday night was no different when the Colonels and Warriors girls’ basketball teams got together for the first time this season.

However, the much-anticipated matchup between the county rivals turned one-sided in a hurry.

Sherando used a 8-0 run early in the first quarter en route to a double-digit lead and never looked back, rolling to a 58-41 victory over the Colonels in the Northwestern District opener for both teams at Sherando High School.

“We shot the ball well and our defense was awesome. I think that’s where we made the hay tonight,” Sherando coach Mike Marsh said. “We played lock-down defense and they struggled.”

James Wood (6-3 overall, 0-1 Northwestern District) got off to a fast start on a short jumper by Amanda Christian right off the opening tip, but then the Warriors responded.

Sherando (8-3, 1-1) scored the next eight points and 15 of the next 17 to grab early control of the game.

Senior Davina Lane, who scored a game-high 14 points, hit two free throws, and junior Kathryn Robertson hit one to push the lead to 8-2 before Wood’s Hannah Arnold scored from in the paint to stop the run, pulling the Colonels back to within 8-4 with 3:08 remaining in the first.

Arnold’s basket may have delayed the Warriors’ momentum, but it sure didn’t stop it. Sherando reeled off seven straight points to race out to a 15-4 lead with less than a minute left in the first.

The Warriors opened the second quarter with yet another extended run, this time a 12-2 run that pushed the lead to 21 points with just over three minutes left in the half.

Junior Amber Garrett opened the scoring for the Warriors in the second, burying the first of her three 3-pointers to stretch the lead to 20-6.

After a Sherando free throw gave it a 15-point lead, Wood’s Amber Wooldridge briefly trimmed the lead back to 13 (21-8) on her short jumper but again the Warriors had an answer.

White scored on the Warriors next trip down the floor for a 23-8 advantage and sparked another 8-0 run.

Travis nailed another long 3-pointer, Garrett hit a free throw and White hit two from the line to extend the lead to 29-8.

The Colonels rebounded a bit and scored six points over the last three minutes of the half, but still found themselves down 33-14 at the break.

Sherando held Wood leading-scorer Makayla Firebaugh to just four first-half points.

“I think we played bad, I think we had a bad game,” James Wood coach Krista Crites said. “The fourth quarter — we really hustled and played the way we can play. I think [Sherando] did a nice job of moving the ball and they shot very well.

[Sherando] did all the right things that they needed to do, and we just had a bad night.”

The Warriors scored the first 11 points of the second half, grabbing their biggest lead of the night, 44-14, with 4:38 remaining in the third quarter.

Over the last quarter and a half, the Colonels outscored the Warriors 27-14, including a 10-6 run (that featured six points from Amber Wooldridge) to end the third quarter, cutting the deficit to 50-24 heading into the fourth quarter.

Firebaugh scored nine of her team-high 13 points in the fourth quarter, and the Colonels outscored Sherando 17-8 in the final quarter.

Three Warriors finished in double figures, and each of the Sherando starters had at least seven points.

“We’ve been letting other teams play their game so this game was just really important that we made them play our game,” White said. “We have the energy and we were all just working well together. We never let up on our effort.

“We have to keep working hard. We have Millbrook coming up [on Thursday].”

Lane led the way for the Warriors with a game-high 14 points. White added 11 points, and Garrett finished with 10. Sherando’s Becca Travis just missed double figures with nine.

Firebaugh’s 13 points led the way for Wood. Wooldridge finished with 10, and Arnold added eight.

“This is a great win for us. James Wood’s a solid program,” Marsh said. “They’ve had good wins this year, and they played Martinsburg real strong even though they lost to them. We knew they are a quality team. They’ve got good shooters, they’ve got four or five really good kids. We had to match them, and we matched them well.”