WINCHESTER — Sherando was determined to take James Wood’s Makayla Firebaugh out of the game.
But the area’s leading scorer had plenty of help from her teammates and some excellent defense to go with it.
Seven different players scored in a the first half for the Colonels as they built a huge 37-10 halftime lead and cruised to a 71-44 Class 4 Northwestern District girls’ basketball victory over Sherando at Shirley Gymnasium on Friday night.
Point guard Jenny Kerns scored 12 of her 14 points in the first half and helped distribute the ball to several of her teammates as Sherando chased Firebaugh with man-to-man defense as the rest of the Warriors played zone.
James Wood coach Krista Crites said that kind of defense is nothing new for Firebaugh, who entered the contest averaging 25.8 points per game. In fact, the Colonels guard the junior with two and three players in practice to make others score.
“This isn’t something that Makayla hasn’t gone through before,” Crites said. “Defenses have done this to her for three years now. We do it to her in practice so it’s nothing she hasn’t seen before. I think she takes that [as] a compliment as respect for her game. ... She handles it very well I think.”
Firebaugh said facing special defenses can be frustrating.
“It depends on the environment,” she said. “If my team is doing well, I’m happy to get rid of the ball and let them score. If we are struggling, I kind of get impatient and I want the ball [to] help my team score.”
In the first quarter, Firebaugh had just two points, but four other Colonels scored as the lead ballooned to 14-0.
Kerns played a key role as the Colonels methodically worked the ball around the Sherando zone. And when she got a chance, Kerns drove and tossed in floaters.
“I think that’s a very key part, patience in the game,” Kerns said. “We rushed sometimes, but when we were under control and patient that’s how we got the shots up.”
“It’s really important because we need more ball movement,” Firebaugh said of the first-half offense. “Tonight, I felt like we had that. We kept moving the ball which kept making shots open for more people to score.”
And that hurt the Warriors.
“All their kids are good ballplayers,” Sherando coach Mike Marsh said. “It’s just Firebaugh is their best player. We tried to take her out of the game in the first half and keep her from scoring. We did a good job on her, but to their credit the other girls picked up the slack. We gave them some space and they scored.”
The other component to building the big lead was defense. The Colonels forced seven turnovers as Sherando went 0-for-9 from the floor in the first quarter. They forced six more turnovers in the second period.
Asia James’ free throw 30 seconds into the second quarter finally broke the drought for Sherando. James would score nine of the Warriors’ 10 points and make their only two shots from the field in the half.
“They moved the ball well tonight,” Crites said. “They’re working more as a team. We made free throws. We rebounded. Our defense was great.”
“Our defense was phenomenal,” Kerns added. “We were getting steals. The other team was struggling because of our defense.”
Marsh admits it has been a struggle offensively for the Warriors (4-8, 1-3) lately. They have not scored more than 36 points in their last five games, of which they have dropped four.
“We’re still not great at handling pressure of any kind,” he said. “We’re doing better at it. The thing is we beat their pressure, but our shot selection was really bad. Once we got to the basket we were either fading away on easy shots or we weren’t taking real clean shots like we needed to.”
Firebaugh, who had nine points at halftime, carried the Wood offense in the second half. She scored 17 points in the final 16 minutes, nailing three long 3-pointers in the third quarter.
Sherando’s Ashton Clark, saddled by foul trouble in the first half, heated up, too. Clark scored 13 points as the Warriors outscored the Colonels 23-18.
Clark drilled two 3-pointers at the start of the second half as Sherando closed to within 58-39 with just under six minutes to go in the game, but the Warriors would get no closer.
“When she is on the floor, we are a better team,” Marsh said of Clark, who had 21 points in the half. “You saw that in the second half, but the other girls have to figure out a way to play without her.”
Four different Colonels scored over the final four minutes as they pulled away to the final margin. Kora Hall and Brenna Prunty each finished with nine points in the contest.
“I think we let up a little too much for my liking in the third quarter, but I think we turned it around in the fourth,” Crites said. “It was an amazing first half, though.”
Crites said the current win streak has a common thread.
“It’s been building our confidence on both sides of the ball, working hard and doing the things they need to do and just realizing how good they could be,” she said.
Marsh, who got 15 points from James on Friday, also hopes his team can hit its potential.
“This is a team that’s going to take a good part of the season to find its rhythm and gel,” he said. “I think if we do gel, we will be a tough out when it comes to late season stuff, but until then we’re going to find ourselves in tight ballgames all of the time.”
