MISENHEIMER — After three tries, A.L. Brown forward Holly Morgan finally got coach Doug Wilson’s attention.
“I told him, ‘Hey, I’ve got a mismatch. This girl can’t handle me,’ ” explained Morgan, the Wonders’ only senior.
Morgan was correct. Her defender couldn’t handle her. She proceeded to go on a scoring binge that lifted the struggling Wonders (15-12) from a 33-29 deficit late in the third quarter to a 46-33 lead and ultimately a 52-45 win over West Stokes in 3A Sectional 2 at Pfeiffer’s Merner Gym.
It was a case of good golly, Miss Holly. It was like a Christmas carol in February — deck the Wildcats by getting balls to Holly — fa-la-la, fa-la-la, la-la-la.
“Hey, I’m tired and getting old and I’m hard of hearing,” said Wilson, a codger of 50 or so. “It took me a while to pay attention to Holly when she kept saying, ‘Get me the ball.’ But when I finally did listen, well, the girl took over.”
Morgan’s confidence tells you something about the belief that Wilson has instilled in his young team. Morgan didn’t score at all in the Wonders’ wild first-round win over R-S Central on Tuesday, but with this game going completely haywire, she didn’t hesitate to demand the ball and shoulder the responsibility of winning or losing the game.
Wilson does most of his confidence-building with his body language. Most coaches would have gone berserk as poorly as the Wonders played in the second quarter. Instead, Wilson sat stoically — like he was watching a bad play and knew he’d be able to sneak out at intermission.
“Look, I’ve been down that playing-bad road before,” he said. “That’s an advantage I have on coaches who haven’t coached losing teams. I don’t expect too much. I mean, who knows what’s going to happen when we play. If you charted us, it would be a different person every night who’s our leader.”
And, by the way, the Wonders, No. 2 seed from the SPC, are no longer a “losing team.” They’ve won six straight heading into tonight’s uphill climb against Forestview (25-1) in the sectional finals. Not long ago, the Wonders were 9-12. And not long ago, they were eking past eighth-place Concord 28-21.
To put everything in perspective, Morgan, a four-year player was on the winning side only nine times in her first three seasons.
Wilson knows he can stay calm, because the Wonders have a way of turning things around sooner or later. His patience was rewarded. The Wonders were devastating in the third quarter and that’s all it took to put away West Stokes (13-11), top seed out of the Tri-County.
Elise Stanback scored 18 to lead the Wonders, 10 of them in the fourth quarter. Morgan added 11, 10 in that one critical give-me-the-darn-ball stretch. Kesha Johnson had 10 and Tomekia Powell eight to keep the Wonders breathing until Morgan got on her rowdy roll.
“We needed that from Holly,” said Stanback. “She took charge out there. The thing is, every one of us can do something. This team just doesn’t want to lose. We are out to make some new history.”
They already have.
Apparently it started at the very first practice in November. “Doug came in the gym and said, ‘OK, do you girls want to win.’ And we said, ‘Yeah, yeah, we do.’ We made a promise to him to win this year,” explained Morgan.
And a quiet promise to themselves.
It looked like the wild, wacky ride that is starting to remind people of the Kannapolis American Legion team’s amazing streak last summer wound end last night. The Wonders jumped all over the Wildcats early, leading 17-7 after a quarter, but then sputtered and coughed for quite a spell.
The Wonders shot 1-for-12 in the second quarter, then staggered to the locker room with their lead down to 23-21, trying desperately to figure out how to contain West’s Marci Schellenberg, who had already scored 12 points.
It got worse.
The Wonders made two field goals against West’s man-to-man defense— both layups by Johnson— in the first seven minutes of the third quarter.
And they were down 33-29 when Morgan at last got a message through to Wilson.
Morgan drew a foul and made a free throw to stop a West run. Then she flipped in a turnaround just before the third-quarter horn to trim West’s lead to 33-32.
Stanback’s steal and layup put the Wonders on top 34-33 and Joanna Hutchinson got the ball inside to Morgan, who rolled in a layup for a three-point lead.
“Two more free throws by Morgan, another Stanback steal and score, and one more turnaround by Morgan made it 42-33 Wonders with 4:15 remaining in the game.
I just started putting them in and kept putting them in,” grinned Morgan. “I’ve got this little baseline fadeaway that I’ve been working on.”
Then Stanback scored six of the quickest points in recorded history, stealing the ball repeatedly and then laying it in at a dizzying pace.
“For a minute-and-a-half or so, Elise got into one of those Elise things,” shrugged Wilson.
West called timeout, but by then the Wonder lead was insurmountable. That gave Wilson a chance to do something he really, really wanted to do — get everyone into the game.
Girls like Dayle Summers, Sara Rodgers and Tiffany Similton got to play that final minute or so, shoot some free throws and have a piece of the victory.
“They all work hard in practice,” said Wilson. “It was great to get everyone in. All in all, I’d say this was a pretty good way to spend a weekend.”
And, of course, the weekend’s not quite over. No one expects the Wonders to beat Forestview, but as Wilson likes to say, “Who knows with this team?”
After all, his team won a game last night in which it not only didn’t make a 3-pointer, it didn’t make a shot beyond 10 feet. But then again, it’s a team with promises to keep.
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NOTES:Morgan had eight rebounds and two blocks, while Powell had nine boards.. Stanback attributed the Wonders’ early woes to playing in a “college gym in front of a bunch of people.”
A.L. BROWN (52) — Stanback 18, Morgan 11, Johnson 10, Powell 8, Rice 2, Hutchinson 1, Buster 1, Rodgers 1, Summers, Crosby, Similton, Thomas, Brown.
WEST STOKES (45) — Schellenberg 20, Wilson 10, Carmichael 4, Cullen 4, Hall 3, Pollard 3, Fowler 1, Neal, Loggins, Mann, Newsome, Hall.
A.L. Brown 17 6 9 20 — 52
West Stokes 7 14 12 12 — 45
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