The crowd in Mount Ulla.

 

By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

MOUNT ULLA — West Rowan senior Emma Clarke usually unwinds after a game by hanging out with friends and having a meal.

But not on Friday. After the second-seeded Falcons’ 55-42 win against third-seeded East Lincoln, Clarke was too exhausted to think about anything other than getting home and getting some sleep.

Clarke’s teammates no doubt felt the same way. East Lincoln pushed the Falcons hard in a fourth-round struggle in the 3A state playoffs for girls basketball, made them work the hardest they have worked since Lake Norman visited Mount Ulla on Dec. 5, but West’s season continues.

The crowd was massive, floor to ceiling and wall to wall, with the West gym bursting at the seams to contain a loud and aggressive throng of humanity.

“Crazy crowd,”Clarke said. “So many people.”

“Great crowd,” said appreciative West coach Ashley Poole. “No place like home.”

Poole can remember her first season at West in 2013-14. The Falcons had Khaila Hall and Taylor Martin, but they were young. West went 7-18, tied for sixth in the South Piedmont Conference, and you could arrive at halftime of a West girls game and still get a good seat for the boys game.

But times have changed.

With a senior group of 1,500-point scorer Lauren Arnold, 1,000-point scorers Clarke and De’Mya Phifer and 600-point scorers Mya Edwards and Makaylah Tenor, the Falcons are 60-1 the last two seasons. It’s been a long journey for them, from watching rivals Carson and Salisbury rule the state, to becoming the queens of the county and state themselves.

Those seniors played their last home game on Friday, so raw emotions were rampant for players and coaches.

More emotion to deal with even than Senior Night, and against an opponent that hadn’t lost since Dec. 15. An opponent that had ended West’s 2022 season. An opponent that also provided the opposition in the 2023 regional final, a neutral-site struggle that West had survived 49-42.

West (29-1) did not start well. Whistles blew. Fouls piled up. East Lincoln led 12-11 after a quarter. Had East Lincoln been able to make free throws, West would have been in a hole.

Poole doesn’t have to give many speeches to this group of players, but she provided one.

“Very disappointing first quarter because we let them dictate to us,” Poole said. “We didn’t play West Rowan basketball, couldn’t have played a whole lot worse, but we were only down by one. It’s a game of runs. I told the girls that East Lincoln had just had theirs, and that needed to be their last one. Now it was time for ours.”

The second quarter was basically an eight-minute run by the Falcons that was fueled by suffocating defense. East Lincoln had a three-point play by Kiara Anderson, but that was it. West won the quarter 14-3 and led 25-15 at halftime. Clarke had three buckets in that decisive stretch.

It helped the Falcons immensely that East Lincoln somehow went 1-for-12 on free throws in the first half. Maybe that was the crowd factor. Whatever the reason, East Lincoln didn’t cash in on the easiest way to score.

“We started playing better in the second quarter,” Clarke said. “We had the run we needed. We got the lead — and we never gave it back.”

East Lincoln (29-2) caused some problems for the Falcons, who didn’t make a single 3-pointer in the game. Normally, the Falcons will knock down four or five from long distance.

But West’s defense was tight. East Lincoln shot 36 percent for the game, shot 2-for-15 from 3 and turned it over 19 times.

The Falcons sprinted ahead by 15 in the middle of the third quarter, but the Mustangs did have one more run in them. They cut West’s lead to eight at one point, but a turnover and big bucket by Arnold pushed West’s lead back to double digits.

East Lincoln had two starters foul out, including Anderson who led the Mustangs with 18 points.

West also lost two players to whistles. Phifer fouled out with four minutes left and Tenor followed.

“We lost two guards, so we had to do some different things,” Poole said. “But Lydia Wilson came in and played really well.”

Wilson, a young post player, the sister of West’s all-time scoring leader Abigail Wilson, scored five points and helped the Falcons finish.

“Lydia did great,” Clarke said. “She made some baskets and did the job on defense.”

Arnold, who made four free throws down the stretch, scored 19 to lead the Falcons. Clarke had 13. Sophomore Tiara Thompson scored nine.

West got 16 points from the foul line, while East Lincoln was shooting 8-for-22 from the stripe.

The 55 points were the fewest West has scored in a game this season.

The Falcons will play top-seeded (Asheville) A.C. Reynolds (27-1) in the 3A West Regional final on Tuesday at 2 p.m. at Winston-Salem’s Joel Coliseum.

It will be the first of four games on the day.

The A.C. Reynolds Rockets won 63-60 in overtime on Friday against (Greensboro) Ben Smith.

East Lincoln     12    3    10    17   — 42

West Rowan     11   14    12   18    — 55

E. LINCOLN — Anderson 18,  Thomas 9, Pethel 8, Atkins 3, Montanari 2, Hege 2.

WEST — Arnold 18, Clarke 13, Thompson 9, Wilson 5, Phifer 4, Tenor 3, Edwards 3.