KANNAPOLIS— Elise Stanback stood at center court, her index finger raised high celebrating A.L. Brown’s South Piedmont Conference Tournament championship.
As amazing as the Wonder guard played, her silent gesture screamed, “We’re No. 1!”
Not “I’m No. 1.”
“Tonight was not an individual thing,”Stanback said. “We know if we play like a team, we can beat anybody.”
Stanback scored nine of her game-high 19 points in the fourth quarter, got 13 points from Tomekia Powell and teamed with Kesha Johnson to smother West Rowan’s offense for much of the night in a 46-43 victory.
The win over the SPC’s second seed was huge for the Wonders (13-12) in more ways than one: A.L. Brown earned its first title in 15 years, and more importantly, the league’s fifth seed got bumped to No. 2 for the state playoffs. Instead of a tough road game Tuesday, the Wonders will play host to the Southwestern Conference’s No. 4 seed.
West Rowan (19-8) fell to No. 3 in the league and will be at home for the Southwestern’s three seed.
The Wonders head into the playoffs on a huge high, having beaten East Rowan and No. 1 Central Cabarrus this week to face West, a team that had beaten them 16 straight times.
It mattered not to Stanback. The junior guard played every second of Friday night’s game, grabbing 11 rebounds and five steals to go along with the 19 points. She also drained 5-of-8 free throws in the fourth quarter to seal the win.
“You’ve got somebody who can play, you don’t have her sitting on the bench,”Wonder head coach Doug Wilson said. “What can that girl not do?”
Stanback spent much of the first half getting the ball down low to Powell, who had nine points in the paint. Even bigger was the defense she played with Johnson, as the tandem harassed West into 4-for-21 shooting and 11 turnovers in the first half.
The Falcons missed their first five shots and trailed 11-5 at the end of one quarter. They didn’t get their first field goal of the second quarter until the 1:32 mark as the Wonders extended to a 21-13 halftime lead.
“I knew we’d have a run — we had so much adrenaline we could’ve driven a steamship out of this place when the game first started,”Wilson said. “They (West) knew that was going to be there. Then they went into the dressing room, came out and played hard.”
Former Wonder Sara Pieper served notice in the third quarter that the Falcons weren’t done yet. She drilled back-to-back jumpers to narrow the lead to four points. Reserve guard Jenny Sloop added six points in the period and, after another Pieper jump shot, Kristen McNeely hit a 3 to pull West within 31-30 heading into the fourth quarter.
“I tried to be a motivator,”Pieper said. “Once I know I’m on, I try to get my team on.”
A relieved Waddell was just happy her team now had a shot.
“I knew we were back in the game,”Waddell said. “It was starting to take a toll on the team, knowing that they were working hard and things weren’t going their way. It tends to work on your mentality, and that’s what we talked about during halftime, being mentally tough.”
The Wonders scored the first field goal of the quarter, then went nearly four minutes until their next one. In between, Danielle Scearce made four free throws to stake West to a 37-34 edge midway though the quarter.
Then Stanback took over. She intercepted a lazy pass and took it the distance for two. Less than a minute later, her steal and layup knotted the score at 38.
“We rushed our decisions with the ball, which created turnovers,”Waddell said. “That kind of flattens you out a little bit.”
Single free throws from Stanback and Michelle Crosby put the Wonders up 40-38 with a minute to go, then Joanna Hutchinson drained two for a 43-39 lead.
After Hillary Hampton hit twice from the foul line to pull West within 43-41 with 28 seconds to go, Stanback hit two more freebies.
West had one last shot to force overtime, but Hampton’s running 3-pointer at the buzzer went just long off the back of the rim, setting off Stanback’s celebration.
“I played with her probably eight years of my life in Kannapolis,”Pieper said. “She’s just someone you can’t contain. You can only wish to.”
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NOTES: Both teams struggled from the field in the fourth quarter. The Wonders went 3-for-16, but hit 9-of-16 free throws. West shot 1-for-7 from the field and 12-for-17 from the foul line. … Scearce led West with 11 points and six rebounds. Sloop, who had seven off the bench, always gives A.L. Brown trouble, said Wilson. She added six rebounds as well.
A.L. BROWN (46) — Hutchinson 2, Buster, Powell 13, Johnson 1, Stanback 19, Brown, Crosby 3, Morgan 6, Rice 2.
WEST ROWAN (43) — Sloop 7, Jones, McNeely 3, Pieper 9, Hampton 4, Scearce 11, Wansley 9.
A.L. Brown 11 10 10 15 — 46
West Rowan 5 8 17 13 — 43
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