Judges' girls top Colonels

February 9, 2011

By Mark Sawyer
Special to The Winchester Star       

WINCHESTER- At the beginning of the season, Northwestern District rivals James Wood and Handley both had high expectations for their girls' basketball teams.

The season has been loaded with ups and downs for both teams, and when they met to finish the regular season Tuesday, the two teams had combined for just two district wins.

But when these two schools get together, the game is never meaningless, no matter what the records are or the playing surface.

Corin Scott poured in a game-high 22 points and Kirsten Ward added 18 points and pulled down 10 rebounds as the Judges spoiled Wood's Senior Night with a 57-50 victory at Shirley Gymnasium.

By virtue of a coin flip, the Judges (9-10, 3-5) will be the No. 3 seed in the upcoming Northwestern District tournament, with Skyline (also 3-5 in the district) falling to fourth.

No. 5 James Wood (8-13, 0-8) will face the Hawks in the play-in game Thursday night at 7 p.m. The winner faces top-seeded Millbrook in Tuesday's semifinals.

Handley will face No. 2 Sherando in the semifinals.

All the girls' tournament games are at Sherando High School. James Wood was celebrating the final home game for Halley DeHaven, Shannan Thorne, Kelsey Seymour and Kristen Dick Tuesday.

Things looked bleak for the Colonels early. Not only did they dig themselves a 16-point first-half deficit, but any comebacks were going to have to be made without starting point guard Kaitlyn Pennington, who was sitting on the bench on crutches after hurting her ankle in practice Monday.

The Colonels were not deterred, though, and they stormed back late in the first half and carried their surge into the second half make a game of it.

Though the Judges never trailed, they struggled to pull away thanks to a 6:38 stretch in which they only scored two points.

"We came back out there [in the second half] and we could not hit anything at all," Handley coach Marvin Scott said. "Nothing would fall in, but they started to play together. They got back, played defense, kept attacking the basket. I can't ask for much more. This is one game that they completely played four quarters."

At the end of the first quarter the Judges led 18-7 behind five points apiece from Corin Scott and Ward.

Scott led an 8-4 run to start the second period with six more points and helped Handley build a 26-11 lead with just under four minutes to play in the half. With 1:46 left, Scarlett Hutchins hit a short jumper to give Handley its biggest lead of the night, 30-14.

At that point the Colonels offense - and defense, for that matter - came to life.

Thorne (20 points, 22 rebounds) started the run with an offensive putback. A steal and quick score by DeHaven and another steal and score by Erica Hepner pulled the Colonels to within 30-20 at the break.

James Wood continued the run to start the second half. Another Thorne putback followed by a short jumper from Sarah Callaham made it a six-point game.

After Handley's Sadie Thomas made two free throws to push the lead back to eight, the Colonels were right back at it. A baseline jumper by DeHaven and another layup by Thorne made it 32-28 with 3:19 left in the third.

"We put a little pressure on them," James Wood coach Rhonda Slider said. "With it being Senior Night, we wanted our seniors to go out there and step up and be leaders, and they were able to do that. They didn't give up when they were down 12, and that's what it takes.

"They're an awesome group of kids, and I couldn't ask for a better group of girls. Then we had a couple of our young ones that were able to score for us and get into the game, and that's what were gonna look forward to."

Four points was as close the Colonels would get the rest of the night. On the next trip down the floor, Tanessa Harris hit a pair of free throws to spark a 9-4 run to end the third, pushing the lead to 41-32.

Handley worked the lead up to 15 in the fourth quarter before Wood made one more run to trim its deficit to six points (50-44) with just under two minutes left.

"My hat's off to them," Marvin Scott said of the Colonels. "They never gave up."

The Judges only made four field goals in the fourth quarter, but they hit 8 of 12 from the line in the period, including 7 of 8 by Corin Scott.

In addition to Scott and Ward, Sadie Thomas added seven points for the Judges.

Freshman Whitney Dick scored nine points off the bench for James Wood, while DeHaven and Hepner added seven points apiece.