ALBEMARLE — One of the most successful seasons in more than two decades for the East Wilkes girls basketball team came to an end last Tuesday night.
With its 57-42 loss at Albemarle, the Lady Cardinals saw their 20-game winning streak come to an end, but East Wilkes head girl’s basketball coach Matt Campbell still looks back on the season with great memories.
The three-straight Northwest 1A Conference tournament titles were something that it hadn’t been done since 1989-92. It also won a pair of NW 1A regular season championships.
The loss was East Wilkes’ first since the middle of December and concluded the season at 23-5 — its second-straight 20-plus win season.
“I am proud of what this team was able to accomplish this year. Twenty-three wins has only happened one other time in my 12 years (back in 2017-18) as the head coach at East. This is the second group of seniors to make it to the third round or beyond in back-to-back seasons (during his tenure),” said Campbell. “The seniors will leave this program in great shape and added to the conference championships (two) and tournament championships (three) that make this a special program with a tradition of winning.”
East Wilkes played fairly even with No. 4 Albemarle over the last three quarters, but the deciding factor was the first quarter for the visitors.
The Lady Bulldogs scored the game’s first 10 points, highlighted by a pair of Jordyn Crump 3-pointers.
Compounding matters was the seven turnovers in the first four minutes for the Lady Cardinals, who had 29 for the game (Albemarle committed 22).
Down 15 at 20-5 after one quarter, East Wilkes started to chip away at the deficit; it started with a three-point play from Kyleigh Lane.
Payton Spicer briefly trimmed the deficit to single digits (20-11) with her first of four 3-pointers in the game. The senior paced East Wilkes 14 points.
Amari Baldwin led all scorers with 33 points and pushed the advantage back to double digits at halftime at 25-13.
The Lady Cardinals came out of the break strong with a 7-0 run behind baskets from Lauren Macemore and Spicer (a 3-pointer), trimming the deficit all the way to five at 25-20.
But a few possessions later, with it still close, East Wilkes was dealt a blow with Kierstin Johnson — the team’s starting post player — suffering an injury.
The senior had to be helped off the floor and did not return.
“The ladies battled hard and competed until the end. We were never really able to get in a good offensive flow due to Albemarle’s physicality and defensive pressure, so give them credit,” said Campbell. “Albemarle was able to produce many second chance opportunities and make some timely buckets.”
Albemarle (25-4) took control from there and never relinquished a double-digit advantage the remainder of the game.
Baldwin pushed the lead to as many as 17 (50-33) with a layup off a steal.
Jasmine Brown and Kai Spencer complemented the Lady Bulldogs with eight and seven points, respectively.
In addition to Spicer, Lane and Kyleigh Price chipped in nine points apiece with Price’s all coming from the free-throw line; Peyton Mastin finished with six points.
Fourth-seeded Albemarle traveled to top-seeded Mountain Heritage on Friday night in the fourth round and lost 60-41. The Lady Cougars (28-2) faced No. 3 Cherokee in the 1A West Region finals on Monday.
The Lady Braves secured its spot in the 1A state championship game with a 64-51 win against Mountain Heritage. Cherokee will face East Columbus on Friday at 1 p.m. in the championship inside the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum on the campus of Wake Forest University.
#4 Albemarle 57, #5 East Wilkes 42
East Wilkes 5 8 15 14 — 42
Albemarle 20 5 15 17 — 57
EAST WILKES: Bailey Stanley 0 0-0 0; Peyton Mastin 3 0-0 6; Lauren Macemore 1 0-0 2; Payton Spicer 5 0-0 14; Kierstin Johnson 0 2-2 2; Olivia Stanley 0 0-0 0; Layla Winters 0 0-0 0; Kyleigh Lane 3 3-7 9; Kyleigh Price 0 9-10 9. Team Totals: 12 14-19 42.
ALBEMARLE: Amari Baldwin 8 15-19 33; Jasmine Brown 3 2-3 8 Riley Davis 0 0-0 0; Kai Spencer 3 1-4 7; Karrington Baldwin 0 0-0 0; Jordyn Crump 1 0-0 3; Darianna Ellis 0 0-0 0; Bianca Robinson 3 0-4 6. Team Totals: 18 18-30 57.
THREE-POINTERS: East Wilkes: Spicer 4. Albemarle: A. Baldwin 2, Crump.
Comments / 0