Pioneer girls get defensive at Wood

By Mark Sawyer
Special to The Winchester Star

Winchester — Sometimes when the offense isn’t there, the defense needs to take over.

That was the case Friday night for the Millbrook High School girls’ basketball team — at least through the first half.

The Pioneers, ranked No. 2 in the first Associated Press Group AA poll this week, overcame a sluggish start thanks to another supreme defensive effort, defeating Northwestern District rival James Wood 87-49 at Donald H. Shirley Gymnasium.

Through eight games this season, Millbrook has averaged 85 points, and aside from a one-point overtime win over Turner Ashby, Friday’s 38-point margin of victory has been their closest contest.

“I’m happy with the team. They’re a great team, they’re great kids,” Millbrook coach Debby Sanders said. “We played good unselfish team basketball [27 assists] and forced around 30 turnovers again. We’ve got to learn to play four quarters, that’s all there is to it. We’ve got to get that, I don’t know, killer instinct, I guess.”

Though Millbrook (8-0, 2-0 Northwestern) scored the first six points of the game and never trailed, the first eight minutes gave no indications of a another Pioneers blowout.

Emily White buried a 3-pointer off the opening tip and followed that up with a short jumper from the paint to give the Pioneers an early 5-0 cushion. A free throw by Courtni Green made it 6-0 with 6:01 left in the first.

James Wood (1-7, 0-1) got on the board with a pair of free throws from Whitney Dennis, and the Colonels eventually whittled the deficit to 10-6 with 1:40 remaining in the first on a layup by Shannon Thorne.

But that was as close as the Colonels got the rest of the night.

Millbrook pushed the lead back to six points at 14-8 by the end of the first quarter before blowing the game wide open in the second.

With their offense struggling (29 missed shots in the first half), the Pioneers’ defense was forced to take over.

In the first half alone Millbrook forced 22 turnovers, and it was the 12 in the second quarter that led to several easy baskets and a commanding lead.

Green scored the first four points of the second to spark another 6-0 run and create a 20-8 lead. This time the run didn’t end there.

Over the first four minutes of the second quarter, the Pioneers outscored Wood 14-2.

Even though Millbrook missed 15 second quarter shots, the Pioneers’ defense created enough opportunities for them to outscore Wood 23-5 and hold a comfortable 37-13 halftime lead.

“We were sluggish. We were dragging,” Sanders said. “We weren’t hitting a lot of shots, but you’ve got to give credit to them, they were playing very well. Once we started hitting some shots, our defense starting stepping up.”

Facing the best team in the district and a 24-point halftime deficit, the Colonels could’ve very easily thrown in the towel, but they battled in the second half and showed first-year coach Rhonda Slider some positives.

In the third quarter, the Colonels were still outscored 30-17, but the 17 points were more then they had scored the entire first half. James Wood battled the Pioneers toe-to-toe in the fourth quarter, scoring another 19 points.

“Honestly, the score means you win or you lose, however tonight on the basketball floor I saw a group of girls that played well together as a team,” Slider said. “I just told them that this was the worst score we’ve had so far, but it was our best game. Obviously there are things that we need to work on, but we played well as a team. Millbrook is the best team and you can’t take that away from them.”

Green, who averages 28 points a game, led the way again for the Pioneers with a game-high 32. White helped out nicely by adding 21, and Olivia Mason chipped in 13 off the bench.

James Wood was led by Thorne’s 17 points. Heather Armel added 15 (all in the second half) and Whitney Dennis scored 8.