North Rowan’s girls basketball team showed the fourth-quarter poise of a defending champion last night and remained unbeaten.
Coach Gary Atwell’s top-seeded Cavaliers edged upset-minded East Rowan 45-43 on Courtney Hill’s basket with three seconds to play to earn a berth in today’s 5:45 p.m. championship game in the Sam Moir Christmas Classic.
North (8-0) faces Davie County (7-4) in the finals. Third-seeded Davie edged West Rowan 53-48 in the other semifinal contest.
Fourth-seeded East Rowan, now 5-5, faces West Rowan (7-4) at 2:15 p.m. today in a consolation game.
North, a 19-point winner at home against East back on Dec. 13, found itself down eight points at 36-28 with only 6:28 to play, then went on an 11-point run to go up 39-36 with three and a half minutes to play.
East fought back to take the lead twice in the final 1:38, the first time on Emily Rich’s basket off an assist from sister Maggie and the second time at 43-41 on two free throws by Lora Williams.
Then the final minute belong to Atwell’s Cavaliers, who got two free throws from Courtney Hill to tie it up at the 27-second mark, a big steal from reserve Moriah Jones, then a well-executed inbounds play from Amber Hill to Joyce Hipps to Courtney Hill for the game-winning layup from the right side of the goal.
“What we did is exactly the way you draw it up,” said Atwell. “Joyce comes off the screen, we give her the ball, Courtney rolls low, she (Hipps) dumps it low, and that’s it. You can’t draw it up any better than that.”
Atwell, who has a chance to become only the second girls coach in tourney history to win three titles in four years, praised seniors Courtney Hill(13 points, 11 rebounds) andHipps (seven points, five assists).
“Joyce and Courtney’s senior leadership: They just made perfect things happen. They’re just two smart kids that play together all the time. They’ve got senior leadership. They want to win,” said the North coach.
“We want to win three out of four and Joyce wants to be on a champion three times. She may be the only girl that’s ever done that,” pointed out Atwell.
No female player has ever won three championships.
Courtney Hill scored nine of her 13 points in the final quarter and eight in the last 4:54. Hipps had five fourth-quarter points, including a big 3-pointer that pulled North within three at 36-33. Hipps picked up her fourth foul at the 3:09 mark of the third period, sat out the rest of the quarter, then played the final period without fouling out.
East, which was led by Emily Rich with 20 points and Michelle Haynes with 10 points and 12 rebounds, came in as the No. 4 seed with a 4-4 record, but made a strong bid to reach the finals for the fourth straight year.
“I thought East played very, very well,” said Atwell. “They were very, very physical. They did the things they had to do to win. I thought maybe our leadership took over a little bit in the fourth quarter, especially when we decided we could be as physical and be as tough as they were playing.”
Atwell thought his team came in sluggish, which often happens to one of the higher-seeded teams after drawing a first-round bye.
“We didn’t have our feet. We hadn’t played in eight days. We just looked a step sluggish. I don’t know if we ever woke up, but we played hard the last four minutes of the game, I thought,” said Atwell.
“When we went fullcourt man-to-man (start of the fourth quarter), they accepted the challenge of just seeing if they could do it,” he added.
North trailed 32-26 entering the final quarter.
Losing coach Randy Bingham, an assistant for Atwell on the Cavaliers’ championship team of 1997, was pleased with his tall team, which had lost three out of four games prior to the tournament.
“I can’t fault them for effort tonight. I thought last night (first-round win over Salisbury on Wednesday) we turned the corner a little bit. Tonight, we played even better, I thought. I was real tickled with our performance.”
Atwell, despite the 58-39 win over East earlier in the month, was quite concerned about the Mustangs coming into the contest.
“I knew they were a lot better ballclub than that. That’s a pretty good basketball team,” he said.
“I still think, come conference tournament time, they’ll jell and be hard to handle.”
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NOTES: East, led by Emily Rich’s 9-for-18 field goal shooting, outshot North from the floor. The Mustangs were 17-for-48 (35.4 percent) as compared to North’s 15-for-50(30 percent). The Cavaliers, however, made their free throws count, going 13-for-20 to East’s 9-for-25. East missed eight foul shots in the final period. ... Haynes and Stephanie Morgan (nine rebounds) led East to a 39-28 rebound advantage. ... Sophomore reserve Crystal Craige was a big factor for North, scoring nine points on 4-for-8 shooting with one 3-pointer. ... Ashley Witherspoon had seven rebounds for the Cavaliers. ... Maggie Rich, a freshman, had eight points and six rebounds for East and got all of her points in the second half.
EASTROWAN (43) —E. Rich 20, Morgan, Haynes 10, Williams 5, Shaw, Ingold, M. Rich 8, Huffman, Alexander.
NORTH ROWAN (45) — A. Hill 7, Witherspoon 3, C. Hill 13, Bowie 2, Hipps 7, Suber, Craige 9, Jones 4, Hendrick.
East Rowan 13 4 15 11 — 43 North Rowan 12 7 7 19 — 45
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