By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

DENTON — The last thing North Rowan girls head coach Lamar Wilkerson expected in his rookie season was to be coaching in a championship game.

But here he is.

Third-seeded North Rowan edged second-seeded Gray Stone on Wednesday, 41-38, in a semifinal game in the Yadkin Valley Conference Tournament.

“Great game by both teams, great game offensively and defensively,” Wilkerson said. “Gray Stone is really good. They’re tall, they’re long, they’re well-coached. This was our best game of the season.”

North (15-11) had lost twice to the Knights (19-6) —  43-29 early in January and 41-37 on Feb. 8 —  but this time the Cavaliers got it done.

North has won eight of its last 10 games under Wilkerson, who started his coaching career when he was 18 years old.

The 4 p.m. start had the Cavaliers out of their routine and scrambling in a lot of ways, but once the game started, the players calmly executed the game plan.

“We had to make it a full-court game and we  pressed for four quarters and played man-to-man for four quarters,” Wilkerson said. “We got in some foul trouble, but we never stopped playing hard and never stopped executing.”

Freshman wing player Hannah Wilkerson again carried the scoring load for the Cavaliers with 21 points. Sophomore point guard Natavia Taborn scored 10.

The other key contributors for North were sophomores Makiya McDaniel, Jamiya Daniels and Darlissa Robbins. They rebounded.

“Gray Stone was really aggressive, but our girls played big on the boards,” Coach Wilkerson said. “We did everything we had to do. Our guards minimized turnovers and our defense was great.”

North will play top-seeded Albemarle for the championship at 6 p.m. on Friday in the South Davidson gym.

A month ago, Albemarle coach Eric Davis said North was really coming on and was going to be a team to be reckoned with, and now it’s the Bulldogs and Cavaliers for the title.

Albemarle (25-1) beat North 63-57 and 54-39 in earlier matchups. Albemarle was pushed hard by No. 5 seed North Moore before winning 59-55 on Wednesday.

“I never thought we’d be here, but the girls have worked really hard for this,” Coach Wilkerson said. “This is a very young group, but we’ve also got three seniors (McKenzie Shoaf, Aubree Cain and Taren Sherrill) and we want to finish strong for them.”

Albemarle, North Rowan and Gray Stone own the YVC’s three automatic berths in the upcoming 1A state playoffs.

NORTH ROWAN SCORING (41) — Wilkerson 21, Taborn 10, McDaniel 6, Daniels 3, Robbins 1.