No. 12 Woodlawn defeats Douglass, 67-57

Warriors, C.M. Wright to play for regional title

Early in the second quarter Wednesday, the Woodlawn Warriors figured out who they wanted to be.

“We are a team built on defense and balance,” Warriors coach Bobby Richardson said. “We finally decided we wanted to play defense and we made them adjust to us.”

The No. 12 Warriors (21-3) turned up the defensive intensity late in the first quarter, using it to rally from an eight-point deficit and defeat host Douglass (20-2), 67-57, in the Class 3A North Section I final.

Wayne Massey led Woodlawn with 18 points, while Shandon Adams paced the Ducks with 13.

The Warriors will host C. Milton Wright, a 73-67 winner over Dundalk, in the regional championship Friday.

Playing in a hot, packed gym, Douglass struck first. The Ducks used seven points and some great rebounding to take a 13-5 lead with 2:51 left in the first quarter.

At that point, Woodlawn began to play tight man-to-man defense and started chipping away at the lead. The Warriors, behind five points from Massey, scored nine of the last 11 points to cut the deficit to 15-14 after the first quarter.

After falling behind 20-16 with 5:56 left in the half, Woodlawn began to hit its stride. Guard Breon Gannon got hot, hitting a 3-pointer and a 2-point field goal wrapped around a layup by David Fulton to give the Warriors a 22-20 lead with 4:43 left in the half. Woodlawn then used its defense to build the lead, outscoring Douglass 14-7 to go into halftime with a 36-27 lead.

The Warriors eventually stretched their lead to 45-29, with 4:25 left in the third quarter, but the Ducks went on an 11-0 run, with nine of the points coming on three 3-pointers by Adams, to cut the margin to 45-40 with 1:40 left in the third.

“Coach called a timeout, and he said we had to adjust and stick with what we know: defense and trusting each other,” Massey said. “His timeout settled us down when we needed it the most.”

Right after the timeout, Woodlawn got a 3-pointer to run the lead back to eight, at 48-40. The Warriors looked comfortable playing with the lead, though Douglass did cut the deficit to 51-47 late in the third quarter when a technical was assessed against the Warriors’ Juwan Lane for unsportsmanlike conduct.

But Woodlawn outscored the Ducks 16-10 in the fourth quarter to put the game away.

“We didn’t get every stop,” Richardson said, “but we got them when they mattered. We are a very balanced team, and we have to play as a team to win. We did that tonight.”

Four Warriors players reached double figures Wednesday, two nights after five scored 10 or more during an upset of No. 1 Poly

Woodlawn might have been seen as a bit of an underdog entering the postseason, but Richardson seemed to like it that way.

“We’ll just let them keep making us the underdog,” Richardson said. “We don’t get the blue-chip recruits. We have to do it with hard work and teamwork. After so many near-misses, maybe this is finally our year.”