James Wood rallies to girls' basketball over Clarke County

By JERRY HOLSWORTH | Special to The Winchester Star

BERRYVILLE — After their team’s slow start, Makayla Firebaugh and Amber Wooldridge rallied James Wood to a 59-39 victory over Clarke County in the girls’ basketball season opener for both squads.

Firebaugh (23 points) and Wooldridge (19 points) took advantage of a foul-prone Eagles defense, taking 15 foul shots between them. Clarke County also committed 27 turnovers.

Still, the Eagles led by three points after one quarter.

“Since we’re a very young team we’re going to have some bumps in the road early,” said Colonels coach Krista Crites, who suited up six sophomores Wednesday. “We pulled it together as the game progressed. Our defense played well, and I’m big on defense as a coach.”

The game began slowly as each team had trouble getting into a rhythm. The Eagles began the game with six turnovers over the first four minutes of play, but were still able to take the lead 2-0 on a jumper by Emily Wenzel.

Wood was equally out of sync on offense, missing its first nine field goal attempts. The Colonels finally broke into the scoring column with 5:47 left in the period when Wooldridge hit a 3-pointer.

Going 1 for 14 from the field, the Colonels only managed to score seven points in the quarter and trailed the Eagles 10-7 after eight minutes of play.

Wood improved dramatically on offense in the second period, while the Eagles still had trouble controlling the ball against an aggressive Colonels defense. Getting baskets from five different players, Wood shot a respectable 5 of 11 from the field in the second period, while nailing six of their eight free throw attempts

Clarke County struggled during the period, making just 2 of its 10 field attempts and the Eagles committed 10 turnovers. The result was a 23-19 Colonels lead at halftime.

“I thought that we came out a little slow, but overall I thought we played really good,” Wooldridge said. “Our defense was really strong tonight. We caused a lot of turnovers. Turnovers are a big key to success.”

“Causing all of those turnovers led to a lot of easy buckets for us,” Crites said. “It also helps our confidence and gets us to the free throw line more where I thought we did well tonight.”

As the game progressed Wood began to dominate play on both ends of the court, steadily building its lead in the process. Megan Hicks’ 3-pointer to begin the second half narrowed the Colonels’ lead to a point, but Wood went on a 9-0 run to pull ahead 32-22 with 3:30 still left in the third quarter.

The rest of the period proved to be sloppy, resulting in eight fouls shots over the last three minutes. Neither side, however, was able to take advantage of their trips to the charity stripe. Both team missed all but one of their free throw opportunities.

Leading 35-26 with eight minutes to play, the Colonels finally put together an excellent quarter on both ends of the court. Firebaugh and Wooldridge were brilliant as the Colonels outscored the Eagles 24-13.

Firebaugh exploded for 14 fourth quarter points, including a 5 of 6 performance at the line. Wooldridge added eight points in the final period.

The Eagles had no answer for the Colonel duo, making 4 of 12 field goal attempts and only 5 of 10 free throws.

Point guard Jennifer Kerns had a good night running the Colonels offense. The sophomore netted six points.

“I thought we played a great game tonight,” Kerns said. “We had some mistakes, but overall it was a good win. Amber [Wooldridge] played most of the game in foul trouble, but was able to stay in the game, and that was really important tonight. ... We’re a very young team, and we have a lot of players who were on the JV last year. All of them played really well tonight and made a big contribution.”

Hicks drained three 3-pointers and led Clarke County with 17 points. Wenzel also scored in double figures with 12 points.