North Rowan girls, CCC champs (Jacqui Smith Watson photo)

Staff report

THOMASVILLE — Defense and 3-pointers, a familiar formula, got it done for the North Rowan girls basketball team again on Friday.

The Cavaliers put together an incredible, 35-point second quarter and beat rival Salisbury 69-43 in the 1A/2A Central Carolina Conference Tournament championship game played in the neutral Thomasville gym.

Top-seeded North has won a program-record 18 games in a row and hasn’t lost since the Christmas tournament, when the Cavaliers were playing without the Goodlett twins. Salisbury is 11-3 since the Christmas tournament. All three of those losses have been to North Rowan.

The player who played the best on Friday, if you had to pick one, was North’s Dasia Elder, who made five 3-pointers. Elder also had the defensive assignment of guarding Jamyrah Cherry, who had scored 30 for the Hornets in the semifinals. She helped limit Cherry to 10.

“We’re not perfect, by any means, but when we can play our style of basketball we’re a very good team,” North coach Darra Walker said. “We play man-to-man defense in a league that plays mostly zone, and I think that’s been the key for us. We have competitive practices and we work constantly on perfecting man-to-man without fouling. Most teams will not try to defend a player like MaKayla Noble man-to-man, but we can put Bloom Goodlett on her and know that Bloom will do a good job of making her work for every point and she’ll do it without fouling out. Bloom is hands down our best defender and always guards our opponent’s best player. That’s not going to show up in the scorebook or on the stat sheet, but we know what Bloom does for us.”

Noble played very well Friday and scored 21 points, but North could live with that. North reasoned that as long as Noble and Cherry didn’t do something mind-boggling, the Cavaliers would win.

“We know we’re going to get scoring from Bailee Goodlett and Brittany Ellis,” Walker said. “They’re going to give us 45 points most nights. But this whole season we’ve worked at building the confidence of our other players. We’ve got other threats. We know Dasia Elder can score and she was on tonight. The last time we played Salisbury, (Krisstyle) Stockton was our second-leading scorer.”

North shot the ball poorly in the first quarter, going 0-for-8 from the 3-point line. The second-seeded Hornets, who had a decided height advantage,  had every chance to build a nice lead, but they couldn’t score, either. It was 6-all after a quarter.

Ellis struggled in a scoreless first quarter, but she made a steal and a physical layup for an 8-6 North lead to start the second quarter. Ellis was fouled on the layup. She missed the free throw, but North battled for the rebound and kept possession. Then Ellis drilled a 3-pointer. That was a five-point trip down the floor, the turning point that energized the Cavaliers.

Next, the Goodletts combined for two (Bloom with the steal and assist, Bailee with the bucket), and it was 13-6.

Cherry scored to temporarily stop North’s surge, but then Elder banked in a 3-pointer, and the Cavaliers were suddenly on fire. Ellis  had a torrid, 16-point quarter with four 3-pointers. Bailee Goodlett scored 10. Elder made three 3s in the quarter.

One of Ellis’ triples came as time expired for a 41-24 halftime lead. In the second quarter, North shot 7-for-11 on 3s.

North slowed things down in the second half, using the clock and spreading the floor so that Ellis or Bailee Goodlett could drive against a single defender.

When Goodlett made a difficult shot over tight Salisbury defense for a 50-30 lead, she expressed her joy verbally and was hit with a technical. Noble made the two technical free throws, but momentum didn’t change.

Bloom Goodlett drilled a long 3-pointer to end the third quarter for a 56-37 lead.

Ellis and Elder made their fifth 3-pointers of the night as the Cavaliers added to their lead in the fourth quarter. Allanah  McArthur got the last bucket of the game.

North made a dozen 3-pointers. Bailee Goodlett scored 25. Ellis had 22. Elder scored 17.

Stockton didn’t score, but she and Bloom Goodlett combined for 13 rebounds.

“We went out and played our game,” Walker said. “We’re never shocked when we win because we know how hard we’ve prepared to win in practice. Winning the conference and the conference tournament are great accomplishments for this team, but we’re not done yet. No one should sleep on us.”

Salisbury (18-7) is seeded sixth in the 2A West playoff bracket. The Hornets, who have won the last two 2A titles, were the top 2A finisher in the split 1A/2A CCC, so they were seeded for the playoffs as a conference champion.

North (23-3) is seeded seventh in the 1A West playoff bracket and will play Andrews on Tuesday at home.

Salisbury    6    18    13    6   — 43

North          6     35   15    13  — 69

SALISBURY — Noble 21, Cherry 10, Evans 6, Arnold 2, McNeely 2, Spruill 2.

NORTH — Bailee Goodlett 25, Ellis 22, Elder 17, Bloom Goodlett 3, McArthur 2.