WINCHESTER — James Wood sophomore guard Olivia Miller grimaced and clapped her hands together in frustration after leaping in the air and committing a foul with 33 seconds left.
Miller might have been a little too aggressive on that play. But it was that aggressive and determined mindset from James Wood’s entire team that had the Colonels well-positioned for a rare feat at that moment.
Second-seeded James Wood defeated No. 3 Sherando 49-36 on Thursday night at Shirley Gymnasium to earn a berth in today’s 6 p.m. Class 4 Northwestern District championship game at No. 1 Millbrook and clinch a Region 4C tournament berth. The Pioneers (20-3) defeated No. 5 Liberty 61-40 in Thursday’s other semifinal.
The regional tournament berth for James Wood (16-7) is its first since 2009.
“It means a lot to us, and I think it means a lot to our school that we’re going to regionals,” said James Wood junior guard Makayla Firebaugh, who scored a team-high 14 points and added 10 rebounds and two steals.
James Wood coach Krista Crites said she couldn’t have been prouder of the effort that got it done.
After forcing only 13 turnovers in a 67-60 loss to Sherando on Jan. 30 that evened the season series, James Wood forced 15 in the first half alone in building up a 33-17 halftime lead.
Overall, the Colonels forced 23 turnovers and held Sherando to 15-of-47 shooting while limiting Warriors star Ashton Clark (33 points in the previous matchup) to just eight points on Thursday.
And Miller did a standout job in her second straight game starting for injured point guard Jenny Kerns, scoring 12 points while directing an offense that only committed 12 turnovers. Kerns is out for the season after injuring her hand in last Friday’s regular-season finale against Fauquier.
“We’ve decided to play basketball,” Crites said. “We’re a really good basketball team, and here at the end of the season we’ve come together. This team is really close.
“They want to see each other succeed. They wanted this. You can tell in the effort in the past three or four games they’ve wanted to play basketball. With the injury to Jenny they could have easily folded, but they got around Olivia, and we’ve been winning.”
Thursday’s game might not have technically been decided in the first half, but James Wood didn’t let a golden opportunity pass it by in taking a lead that proved way too much for Sherando (11-13) to overcome.
At the 5:35 mark of the first quarter, Clark went to the bench with her second foul. Miller hit two free throws at the point, kicking off a stretch in which James Wood outscored Sherando 23-12 over the next 10 minutes and 20 seconds as Clark sat to take a 26-15 lead.
Crites said James Wood took advantage of Clark’s foul trouble in the season’s first matchup when it outscored Sherando 37-10 in the first half of a 71-44 win on Jan. 4. On Thursday they did it again by routinely forcing miscues with their trapping defense and turning those mistakes into points on the other end.
“We didn’t hope to get her in foul trouble, but it was nice to get her in foul trouble,” Firebaugh said. “We were able to get up and get our points.”
Sherando coach Mike Marsh said he apologized to his players for leaving Clark on the bench so long, because the Warriors just couldn’t get into an offensive rhythm without her ball-handling and shooting abilities.
“My typical rule is two fouls [in the first half], you sit,” Marsh said. “I’ve done that all my career. Tonight I stuck with that. Hindsight’s always 20-20, but I let the game get too far away from us in the first half. That’s my fault. I told the girls in the locker room that I had the ability to get Ashton back on the floor, but I kept her out. Being down [16] at halftime was too just too much to overcome.”
After going scoreless in the first half, Clark heated up a bit late in the third quarter and hit two two 3-pointers to cut Sherando’s deficit from 36-21 to 36-27 entering the fourth period. A basket from Asia James (team-high 14 points) then had the Warriors down seven at 36-29 with 7:05 left.
But then the Warriors lost control of the ball on a drive, and Miller pounced. She picked up the loose ball and dribbled three-quarters of the court for a layup that pushed James Wood’s lead to 38-29 and settled the Colonels down. James Wood had some good looks in the third quarter but scored only three points on 1-of-14 shooting.
Miller’s basket started a 6-0 run for a 42-29 lead, and James Wood kept the margin in double digits the rest of the game.
Miller said she was nervous replacing Kerns when she first had to do it last week, but now she’s more comfortable. Miller said it helps having the support of her teammates.
“I definitely think we’ve played better as a team going on,” Miller said. “We’re all so close.”
Crites said she did a great job.
“She handled the pressure well, she scored, had very little turnovers,” Crites said. “I couldn’t have asked more from her.”
The season didn’t end the way the Warriors wanted it to, but Marsh said he couldn’t be prouder of a team that won six straight district games coming into Friday.
“We won seven of nine, and the teams that beat us were really good teams,” Marsh said. “The second half of the season, we improved enormously. I’m proud of them. They worked hard in the gym every day. We knew we could get better and we took the time and effort in to get better. We’re a much better team than we were at the beginning of the season.”
Brenna Prunty added eight points for the Colonels.
