Millbrook tops Wood girls in battle of district unbeatens

WINCHESTER — The Millbrook girls’ basketball team came out to warm-up music inspired by the Muhammad Ali phrase, “the champ is here.”

The Pioneers then went out and proved why they’re still the team to beat in the Class 4 Northwestern District.

In a matchup of teams unbeaten in district play, it was Millbrook that emerged with its 40th straight district win dating back to 2017 with a 68-45 home victory over James Wood at Casey Gymnasium on Friday night.

The Pioneers (13-0, 6-0 district) broke open a 15-10 game by outscoring James Wood (8-2, 5-1) 14-8 over the last 3:53 of the second quarter following a Pioneer timeout, then cranked up its defense and continued its hot 3-point shooting to outscore the Colonels 21-10 in the third quarter. Millbrook’s 50-28 lead after three quarters proved too much to overcome.

Avery O’Roke (27 points) and Emily Magee (career-high 19 points to go with seven rebounds and four steals) each connected on five 3-pointers as Millbrook shot 11-of-25 (44 percent) from beyond the arc.

“This team believes that they’re the top dog [in the district], and they prepare each and every practice to go out and defend that,” Millbrook coach Erick Green Sr. said. “They understand that each and every time they step on the floor they’re defending a [district] championship.

“I’m very proud of them what they do. They give me great effort in practice and great effort in the games.”

Green Sr. didn’t feel like his team was bringing enough energy halfway through the second quarter, though.

The Colonels (16-of-49 shooting, 22 turnovers) never got in sync against Millbrook’s trapping zone defense. (The area’s leading scorer at 24.7 points per game, Makayla Firebaugh, scored 16 points but missed her first six shots and finished 5-of-14 from the field.)

But after being held scoreless from the 4:58 mark of the first quarter to the 5:12 mark of the second while Millbrook scored 10 points to take a 15-4 lead, James Wood did go on a 6-0 run over a span of 73 seconds to climb within 15-10 when Green called a timeout with 3:53 left in the second quarter.

“I told them we got away with being aggressive. We got passive,” Green said. “We let them kind of dictate the pace.

“We talked about in practice [coming into Friday] that we want to control the game. We want to jump out early, maintain possession of the ball, cause them to turn the ball over, and we run our offense. When we run our offense, it’s hard to stop. One we got that together, the game started to shift in our favor.”

Magee got things started by putting back her own miss, then the Pioneers worked the ball around crisply from Ali Hauck (10 points, 11 rebounds) to O’Roke to Magee, who knocked down a 3-pointer against James Wood’s 3-2 zone to make it 20-10.

“We came out with a lot of energy,” O’Roke said. “We had a lot of pressure on defense and that really just got things going, and we went on a run.”

O’Roke and Magee would each sink one more 3-pointer apiece to send the Pioneers into halftime up 29-18.

“Trust me, we shoot a lot of 3-pointers in practice,” Green said. “We’re not hesitant to shoot the 3. We do a good job of doing a lot of challenging shooting drills. I want them to shoot them, and once we got a rhythm going we kind of separated ourselves.”

Magee is coming off a performance against Sherando in which she made 3 of 5 3-pointers, and she was feeling it again Friday (5 of 10).

“Once you start making them, then your confidence gets higher,” Magee said.

O’Roke kept the good times rolling in the second half with two 3-pointers in the first minute of the third quarter to make it 35-18.

Over the rest of the quarter, Millbrook used its defense to create offense, forcing eight turnovers and getting multiple easy baskets in transition.

“Our defense empowered our offense,” Magee said. “Once we started getting a lot of steals, our offense came together.”

Millbrook finished 27 of 49 (55.1 percent) from the field.

Magee, who has signed with NCAA Division II Frostburg State, got the job done in all phases of the game.

“She made some mistakes, but she also made plays,” Green said. “She made big shots. As a shooter, I’ve always told her, if you miss one, the next one’s going in. She believes that.

“She hustles. Tonight she was rebounding, bringing the ball up the court to break the press. She did an excellent job and played a great game.”

James Wood coach Krista Crites said the third quarter was frustrating because of the fastbreak points that the Colonels gave up. Earlier in the game, Crites though James Wood’s inability to take advantage of some good scoring opportunities played a big role in its deficit.

“I don’t think we played bad. I think we shot bad,” Crites said. “We had open shot after open shot, we just didn’t convert. We hit the open holes in their defense. We did exactly what we wanted to do. We just didn’t score. [Millbrook] played really good defense on Makayla. We knew coming in what they were going to do.

“We just kind of got rushed at times and didn’t take care of the basketball. I just think a couple of mental lapses in the third quarter kind of hurt us.”

James Wood was also led by Brenna Prunty (12 points, six rebounds).

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