Staff report

MOUNU ULLA — West Rowan’s girls basketball team is back in action tonight at 6 p.m. against the Ashe County Huskies.

The seventh-seeded Huskies (18-8) will be making a trip of about 100 miles from West Jefferson to challenge the second-seeded Falcons (27-1) in a third-round matchup in the 3A state playoffs.

It’s a rematch. The teams also met in the third round in Mount Ulla last season. The Falcons pulled away to win that one, 80-55, with De’Mya Phifer, Tiara Thompson and Lauren Arnold combining for 66 points. Phifer had one of the best games of her career with 27 points.

Those three are still wearing light blue, as are long-time teammates Emma Clarke, Makaylah Tenor and Mya Edwards.

The Falcons don’t have a huge scorer.

Arnold, a 5-foot-11 forward headed to Mars Hill, leads the team with 16.3 points per game. Clarke, a 6-foot-1 Tennessee softball signee, scores almost 14 per game. Thompson, a sophomore, averages almost 12, while Edwards and Phifer average 11 each. That’s five girls who average double figures.

All five made the All-South Piedmont Conference team. That balance makes the Falcons very tough to defend.

Then there’s Tenor, who only averages 7, but is capable of explosions. She had 25 in the SPC tourney championship game to bury Robinson.

The Falcons don’t have as much experienced depth they had last season when they went unbeaten, but it’s a similar team to the one that went 31-0 and won the program’s first state championship. The only loss this season came very early to 4A power Lake Norman. West has won 25 in a row since that setback, almost all of them blowouts, so that’s 56 wins for coach Ashley Poole in the Falcons’ last 57 outings.

The Massey Ratings give West Rowan a 90 percent win probability tonight and project the score to be 66-45, although fans expect more scoring from both teams. West plays at a furious pace, and Ashe County usually puts up quite a few points, as well.

Ashe County’s standouts include Paige Overcash, a 6-foot-1 post, who became the first athlete at Ashe County to perform the two-sport feat of scoring 1,000 points in basketball and getting 1,000 kills in volleyball. Overcash has ties to Rowan County, including a father who graduated from West Rowan. Overcash’s best sport is volleyball, and she is headed to Liberty on a scholarship.

Ashe County sophomore Abby Eller is another impressive player for the Huskies. She’s 5-foot-11 and has guard skills.

Ashe County has beaten Franklin and North Iredell in the playoffs. West beat familiar SPC rivals Central Cabarrus and Northwest Cabarrus to get to Round 3.

Next for the winner is No. 3 seed East Lincoln or No. 6 Stuart Cramer, a Gaston County school.