By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

CHAPEL HILL — Mary Morgan’s bounce pass barely wiggled through a defender to Haley Dalton, who barely caught it.

Then Dalton barely got the layup to the glass as she was fouled.

That one play that barely happened — a massive and-one nearly 7 minutes into the game — was all it took to get the Salisbury girls basketball team going on Saturday.

Once they got going, a relentless, gritty bunch of veterans weren’t going to be stopped. They won 48-39, their second straight 2A state title.

“You get down 13-0 at the start and what kind of message do you have to give the team, especially when they’re used to being fast starters?” Salisbury coach Lakai Brice said. “I told them to calm down. I told them to relax. What we needed was to see one shot go in, and once that happened, we found our defensive intensity.”

Getting down 13-0 at the outset of a state championship game wasn’t exactly part of the game plan. The Hornets dug an awful hole in front of worried, head-shaking fans at the Dean Smith Center.

The Hornets (27-3) had to control the last 25 minutes against upstart Seaforth (27-4)  to make up for their struggles during the first seven minutes,  but they did what they had to do.

They almost always do.

“I had to keep coaching and they had to keep playing,” Brice said. “It’s a veteran group. They didn’t panic.”

Game MVP Makayla Noble scored 15 points, many of them amazing. Most Outstanding Player  and sportsmanship award winner Icesis Nwafor scored 10, all of them big.

Kyla Bryant ran the show and made sure the Hornets played almost turnover-free in the final game of an amazing carer. She handled the ball 90 percent of the time and had four assists and two turnovers. She had a huge bucket to end the third quarter, and on a day when her jump shots were rimming out, she still managed to score 14.

Dalton scored seven and made a sweet pass to Morgan for Morgan’s only two.

Sixth person Shamya Arnold made her time on the floor count. She contributed the game’s biggest hustle play.

While Morgan and Bryant have been around forever and have generally had the same roles for a while, this team doesn’t have much in common with last season’s champs.

The Hornets who won it all in 2022 had Rachel McCullough bombing 3-pointers and Jaleiah Gibson and Jamecia Huntley defending and ripping down rebounds. They had the luxury of bringing Noble, Nwafor, Dalton and athletic guard Kiki Walker off the bench, one of the best benches in county history. Their only problem was finding playing time for everyone. The 2022 Hornets were a basketball machine. They were comparable to the 2023 West Rowan Falcons.

This season’s Hornets had little depth and zero margin for error. One sprained ankle or one untimely whistle could have ended their run at any time. There actually was a game this season in which Bryant and Noble were the only two Hornets that scored.

But they played a killer schedule in December and they figured it out. They played together. They persevered. They maximized each other’s strengths and covered up each other’s flaws. The odds weren’t in their favor, but they stayed the course.

Now they are back-to-back state champions. The only other girls basketball teams to accomplish that feat in Rowan County history were the Salisbury three-peaters of 2009, 2010 and 2011.

“I know a lot of people counted us out because we did lose a whole lot from last season,” Brice said. “But I could see this summer that we had the chemistry and we had another special group. I knew we had a chance.”

Seaforth, a second-year school near Pittsboro, screened and cut and got layups early against the struggling Hornets . They took a 13-0 lead on a 3-pointer by Peyton Collins and Brice took a timeout.

The Hornets regrouped during that timeout. Then Dalton made her humongous three-point play. By the end of the first quarter, Nwafor had swished a 3-pointer, Noble owned a majestic and-one, and the Hornets were only down 15-9. They were feeling pretty good about where they were, considering where they had been.

Zone defense was helping. Seaforth had expected man-to-man, and while the Hornets opened in man, 2-3 zone worked better for them. They ran some traps, got some turnovers, got a few easy buckets.

Salisbury caught up for the first time at 19-all, as Dalton made a nice pass to Morgan in the lane. Morgan finished over and through defenders with 3:47 left in the first half.

A driving bucket by Noble gave the Hornets their first lead. Salisbury went ahead by five a few times. A layup by Dalton gave Salisbury a 26-23 halftime lead.

Seaforth made adjustments, got the ball into the paint several times early in the second half, drew some shooting fouls and tied the game 30-all when Collins made another 3-pointer.

But Seaforth would stay stuck on 30 on the scoreboard for an incredibly long time. Gabby White, Seaforth’s top player, sat down with four fouls with 3:05 left in the third quarter. That put a major dent in Seaforth’s offense.