Regional champions. Seniors Makaylah Tenor, Mya Edwards, Emma Clarke,

Lauren Arnold, De’mya Phifer with Coach Ashley Poole.

Staff report

WINSTON-SALEM — West Rowan’s girls basketball team will be back in the 3A state championship game.

The second-seeded Falcons (30-1) beat A.C. Reynolds 66-54 in Tuesday afternoon’s 3A West Regional final played at Joel Coliseum.

Wes, 31-0 in 2022-23, became the first Rowan girls basketball team to win 30 games in back-to-back seasons.

The Falcons had a slow start, were tied 13-all after a quarter and trailed 17-13 early in the second quarter, but they finished the half on a 16-3 run to take a 29-20 lead. A.C. Reynolds made only one shot the last six minutes of the half — and that was a heavily contested 3-pointer.

“Super proud of how we played,” West coach Ashley Poole said. “A.C. Reynolds has a great-shooting team. The key was to limit them to one shot. The first quarter, they out-hustled and out-rebounded us, but we started rebounding harder in the second quarter. That helped us get out in transition some and we got to the rim more. That’s what we do, and we were able to get into a rhythm and play our game.”

Despite foul trouble limiting leading scorer Lauren Arnold, West was able to maintain the lead throughout the second half against the top-seeded Rockets (27-2).

West surged ahead by as many as 18 points in the third quarter, got a spree in the paint from Emma Clarke late in the quarter and took a 48-36 lead to the fourth quarter.

A.C. Reynolds made 3-pointers and fought back as close as six points, but Tiara Thompson controlled the ball during some dicey situations and Mya Edwards made back-to-back buckets for West, the second one with 1:43 left to play, to push the lead back to 10.

“We’ve had some tough battles in the last week,” Poole said. “We stayed the course.”

Thompson led the Falcons with 17 points. Clarke (14), Edwards (12) and De’Mya Phifer (12) also scored in double figures.

Peyton Harvey scored 15 to  lead the Rockets.

The championship game will be played on Friday at 3:30 p.m. at the Joel Coliseum against Terry Sanford, a Fayetteville school. Terry Sanford is 26-5, including some losses outside the state.

West Rowan     13    16     19    18   — 66

AC Reynolds    13       7     16   18   — 54

WEST — Thompson 17, Clarke 14, Edwards 12, Phifer 12, Arnold 8, Tenor 3.

ACR — P. Harvey 15, Janus 12, T. Harvey 10, Long 9, Wilcox 6, Young 2.