High school basketball: Season ends for South girls
Published 3:05 pm Wednesday, February 23, 2022
- South's Mackenzie Chabala. Photo by Wayne Hinshaw; for the Salisbury Post.
Staff report
WEAVERVILLE — Second-seeded North Buncombe is one of the favorites to win the 3A girls basketball state championship and showed why in an 89-45 victory against South Rowan on Tuesday.
That’s a season high for points allowed by the Raiders, who made a long road trip to the mountains. They lost their last four games and closed the books with a 10-14 record.
“We gave our all, but that’s a solid team,” South head coach Alex Allen said.
Junior Mackenzie Chabala established a new career high for the second straight game and led South with 24 points. Senior Bethany Rymer closed her career with a 17-point effort.
Those two combined for 41 points, but North Buncombe (20-6) held the rest of South’s squad to four.
North Buncombe made a dozen 3-pointers and put five girls in double figures. The Blackhawks, who play in a split 3A/4A conference in the Asheville area, won their ninth in a row.
North Buncombe rolled up 25 points in the first quarter and stayed hot in the second. The home team led 49-23 at halftime.
It was 73-36 going to the fourth quarter.
Karlyn Pickens, a 6-foot-1 senior who was the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year for softball as a junior, scored 22 points to lead North Buncombe.
Devon Davis made three 3-pointers and scored 20. Kadence Penley and Alison Childress hit three 3-pointers apiece.
North Buncombe will host Rockingham County (21-4) on Thursday.
Rymer finished her career with 1,063 points, eighth in program history. She didn’t play as a junior, but scored 475 points as a senior.
Rymer and Chabala led a positive season for South, which included a return to the playoffs.
Rymer is the only senior.
South had totaled six wins in the previous two seasons.
“It was a good season,” Allen said. “We improved a good bit, and I was proud of the girls.”
South 14 9 13 9 — 45
N. Buncombe 25 24 24 16 — 89
SOUTH — Chabala 24, Rymer 17, Dextraze 2, Cherry 2.
N. BUNCOMBE — Pickens 22, Davis 20, Barnwell 13, Childress 11, Penley 10, Laws 5, Edmonds 4, Parnell 4.
