But the 3A South Piedmont Conference champion Falcons reached their destination anyway, surviving a North Davidson speed trap 41-28 on Friday afternoon at Bullock Gymnasium to emerge as Sectional No. 1 champions.

It was a rare comeback victory for a West team that has been a front-runner all season. The Falcons (23-5) trailed the Black Knights (17-6) by eight points in the second quarter.

Angie Waddell’s girls finally scratched a seven-year itch. This will be West’s first trip to the regionals since 1993. The Falcons will find out Monday when and where they’ll play their first game and whom they’ll be facing.

The sectional trophy was actually an Oscar for the Falcons’ supporting cast. Leading lady Kari Schenk failed to reach double figures for only the third time this season. Co-stars, Kate Goodman and Sara Pieper, didn’t have big games, either. Goodman, in foul trouble all the way and hurting with a sore ankle, scored only eight. Pieper, the team’s top shooter, scored just two.

The Falcons won because Shameeka Wansley delivered her best game since Christmas with 13 points and 11 rebounds and because Jenny Sloop, Kristen McNeely and Danielle Scearce combined with Schenk, Goodman and Wansley to get it done on the defensive end.

North Davidson coach Kim Payne had watched the Falcons run Central Cabarrus into the ground by 36 points in the sectional semifinals on Wednesday and she also carried the scars from the 71-44 beating that West gave her team in last year’s sectionals. So on Thursday morning, Payne decided the best course of action for her team was to slow West to a crawl by holding the ball.

“They just blow everyone out,” said Payne. “They get people down early and their confidence builds until they run all over you.”

Payne’s girls worked on patience, patience and more patience at Thursday’s practice. Then, on Friday afternoon, they nearly drove the Falcons crazy with the sort of patience that Job would have envied.

It was an overnight makeover for the Knights, who played an uptempo game this season. You had to give them credit. Payne’s girls were Tri-County Conference champs and had won 11 in a row with their old style, but they did exactly what their coach asked. Payne’s plan was enough to offset West’s superior speed well into the second half.

West opened with a 1-3-1 zone and North was perfectly content to pass the ball around it. After six minutes, North, which was eating big chunks of clock on each possession, led 6-0. When West got the ball, it was in such a rush to speed up the game that it turned it over or flung up a bad shot. West’s first nine chances resulted in five turnovers and four misses.

“We were playing smart, doing just what we wanted,” said Payne. “And they were getting frustrated. We were giving ourselves a chance.”

West went man-to-man after a timeout midway through the first quarter, but the Knights still refused to hurry or worry. After seven minutes, 16 seconds, Schenk finally got West on the board, but the flustered Falcons trailed 6-2 at the first break.

“After the first few minutes we knew what they were going to try to do,” said Waddell. “But it took time to adjust. No one had done that to us before.”

The game continued to be a “Payne” for the Falcons in the second quarter. They were down 12-4 at one point. But then Wansley asserted herself. The 5-11 junior scored three quick buckets inside, including one which gave West its first tie — 14-14 — at halftime.

The pace had been so slow that West’s eight-point deficit had seemed more like 80. When the Falcons managed to get even, they celebrated like they’d won.

But West didn’t lead for the first time until Wansley’s stickback at 5:24 in the third quarter made it 18-17. Then Schenk buried West’s only 3-pointer on the day and put in a layup for a 24-19 edge.

West’s lead reached 26-19 when Sloop stole the ball and converted a 2-on-1 break with McNeely. It was the sort of break that Schenk and Pieper have combined on 25 times in the course of this season, but watching the odd couple of Sloop and McNeely producing a pair of precious points seemed to light a fire under everyone.

“I was just trying hard to make them start running with us,” said Sloop. “That’s our game.”

West came out in the fourth quarter, getting after it on defense like five Shane Battiers. With Sloop, Schenk and McNeely chasing North’s perimeter people relentlessly, the Knights wilted.

North committed six turnovers in the fourth quarter and got off only five shots. Three of those were successful jumpers by Tiffany Adkins, but they weren’t enough to halt a West team that was now untracked and unstoppable.

West had a furious 9-2 blitz to open its biggest lead at 35-21. Goodman fouled out with 4:28 remaining in the game, but not before hitting back-to-back 15-footers to fuel the clinching run. After that burst, West only needed occasional free throws to hold on to its 10th straight win.

It was the worst offensive showing of the season for West, but no one cared. Twenty-eight minutes of consistent, persistent man-to-man defense had put the team on the road to Hickory.

“We never once got tired,” said Sloop. “We wanted to win so badly that our energy just wouldn’t stop.”

NORTH DAVIDSON (28) — Craven 1, Brittain 4, Bryant, Maley 2, Snyder, Cromer, Jordan 9, Adkins 12.

WEST ROWAN (41) — Schenk 9, McNeely 1, Goodman 8, Pieper 2, Wansley 13, Scearce 2, Sloop 6.

North Davidson 6 8 5 9 — 28