Sadie Featherstone (4) and Mary Church

By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

GRANITE QUARRY — East Rowan’s girls basketball team plays Jay M. Robinson for the South Piedmont Conference Tournament championship on Friday at 6 p.m. in Concord’s Rimer Gym.

Admission is $10, but it may be worth it, as you can also watch the boys championship game that follows. Robinson and Concord will put enough quickness on Coach Bo Court to make your head spin.

East’s girls, seeded third, won a monumental game with second-seeded Northwest Cabarrus in Tuesday’s semifinals. East (21-5) has won the most games it has won since 2015 when the Mustangs were victorious 22 times. East will be trying to win its first conference tournament championship since 2014 when East benefited from the serious height of Karleigh Wike and Kelli Fisher.

None of the girls on East’s current squad had ever won a conference tournament game prior to this season, but it’s a good team. It has a ton of experience. Kori Miller and Kady Collins have been playing varsity ball for four seasons. Isis Smith, a bouncy front-court player who also is in the Class of 2025, got into a few games as a freshman.

In the 2022-23 season, East head coach Bri Evans, an Iredell County girl who was a star at Catawba College not too long ago, added Sadie Featherstone and Lily Kluttz to the mix. East also added a very important sophomore transfer — Mary Church, who had scored more than 200 points as a Gray Stone Day freshman. Church brought not only scoring and ball-handling skills to the team but a fire that helped energize the program.

East has been getting better for a while, and with most of the Rowan girls basketball teams down this season, the Mustangs enjoyed fun nights in December. They rolled through the Christmas Tournament at Catawba College, even with Collins, their tallest player, sidelined for the championship game. That was the best basketball night East’s program has enjoyed in a while. It has led to a very strong season. East had a 10-game winning streak at one point and currently has won seven of eight.

Church is Rowan County’s leading scorer with 17 points per game. Collins and Featherstone also average double figures. A lot of other points come from a lot of different places, and in recent weeks, Kluttz has been scoring more.

Gray Stone Day and Jay M. Robinson were both in the 1A/2A Yadkin Valley Conference in the 2021-22 basketball season, so Church has tangled with the Bulldogs a long time. Church had 17 points and eight rebounds in a game with Robinson as a Gray Stone freshman, although Robinson still won the game.

Not long after that, Church played her last game for Gray Stone. That game also was against Robinson.

You can imagine the havoc Robinson football was wreaking in a 1A/2A football league in the fall of 2021.

When a 1A school canceled a football game against the Bulldogs — declining the opportunity to be the victims on Robinson’s Senior Night — that was the last straw for Robinson administrators.

Schools are allowed to appeal to change classifications at the halfway mark of a four-year realignment period. Every school in the state that appealed — and there were a lot of them — asked to move down a classification.

Except one. One appealed to be moved up from 2A to 3A. That was Robinson.

Robinson’s wish was granted. The Bulldogs were assigned to the 3A South Piedmont Conference, which already included three of their Cabarrus neighbors

Robinson’s football athletes are obviously special. So are the ones who play boys and girls basketball.

Robinson’s boys basketball team lost one SPC game this season. They would have gone undefeated, but they ran into Carson on one of those nights when it was raining 3s in China Grove.

Robinson’s girls (22-4) didn’t lose any SPC games in the regular season. The Bulldogs beat East Rowan 59-52 and 64-47.

The Bulldogs obliterated Central Cabarrus 48-24 in the SPC semifinals on Tuesday. Central scored zero points in the second quarter and only four in the first half.

Bulldog coach Lavar Batts Sr., who has coached more than 200 wins, has one of the state’s best players. Camri Hobbs is a 6-foot-3 junior with guard skills to go with her size. She plays outside. She shoots very high percentages. She can handle the ball and is a superb passer.

Teams obviously focus on containing Hobbs, but her teammates, girls such as 6-foot-2 Destiny Chambers, Shariyah Rucker and Makiyah Gray, are good enough to beat you even if Hobbs has an off night, and she doesn’t have many off nights. Hobbs scored 40 recently against Lake Norman Charter.

The good news for East is the Mustangs have nothing to lose, and East has an experienced team that has no shortage of competitiveness. It should be a very good game.

East will be in the state playoffs for the first time since the 2019-20 season.