Northwood sweeps Northern in home basketball games

By Gene Galin

Pittsboro, NC – The Northwood Chargers swept their Northern high school opponents in all three basketball games on Friday evening.

The Northwood varsity basketball team won Friday’s home conference game against Northern (Durham, NC) by a score of 51-43.

Scoring

Rebs, Asst, Steals and TOs

Basketball coach Matt Brown noted that: “So a couple bad shots here and there down the stretch. Easy run outs in transition. But they’re still young and trying to figure out how to put a team away. Give Northern a lot of credit, they didn’t quit. They came back and made a run, which we knew they would. I’m really proud of our guys on how they play in the first three quarters offensively and defensively.”

Coach Brown, thinks that due in part of COVID the team is still going through a learning process. “There’s a couple opportunities where we could, have throw a lob or we should have seen someone we didn’t. These guys are the ones who have been playing together for almost two months. And that’s it. So I mean, they’re still learning each other. They’re still learning where everyone’s at on the floor. They’ll get there soon.”

With 54 seconds left in the first quarter and the team in possession of the ball coach Brown told them to hold the ball for the last shot. Why? “We always like to take the last shot in the in the quarters. That didn’t play this time. Always want to get an open layout during that time period. We look at it as it’ll frustrate a defense. If we run our segments, run a set and get a really good shot, possibly score before the quarter, that’s really defeating for the opponent. We practice it every single day. We’re still not that good at it right now. But we’ll get there.”

One of the top scorers for this game with four 3s was senior Troy Arnold (#11). Coach Brown commented that “He is a solid player. He’s always, always knows where to be at the right spot. He’s a returning guy from last year’s team who got a lot of playing time. So he knows what it takes to win big games and he comes up a lot in big time games like this.”

Going into Friday’s game against Northern, the Northwood Varsity boys team was ranked #20 in MaxPreps NC Class 3A High School Boys Basketball Rankings

The Northwood Lady Chargers varsity basketball team won Friday’s home conference game against Northern by a score of 54-32. The team is undefeated this season and improves it’s record to 10-0.

Going into Friday’s home game the Lady Chargers were ranked number 1 in MaxPreps NC Class 3A High School Girls Basketball Rankings.

Scoring

Top Northwood scorers were Te’Keyah Bland with 17 points and Natalie Bell with 14 points.

Rebs, Asst, Steals and TOs

Top rebounder was Te’Keyah Bland with 11 rebounds.

Lady Chargers basketball coach Cameron Vernon on the overall vibe of the game: “They gave us a really good fight. Coach Crutchfield has always done a good job against us. He gets his kids ready to play. They were ready to play tonight and really bad. I thought their team played extremely hard. Our team started off a little slow. But second half, we had a big time second half. We turned it on at 34 points in the second half. I thought we really picked up our defensive energy. We’re more patient on offense got to the to the rack. I really did love their balanced scoring. The sharing of the ball in the second half was was really fun to see. It was nice to to watch girls play in that play that style.”

First half the Lady Chargers scored 20 points. In the second half, you scored 34 points. What did coach Cameron tell them in the locker room at halftime? “I was just honest with them. I don’t think we had the energy. I know this is a pink game. And it’s important for them and they like wearing the pink uniforms. But at the same time, we got a game to play. And again, when you’re coming to the game, not to know there’s a bullseye on your chest. And you’re everyone’s Duke and Carolina game. Right? This is their Super Bowl. Sometimes they just want to knock us off. And we have to learn how to respond to that energy from our opponents.”

Senior Natalie Bell played aggressively in the game defensively and scored 14 points on offense. Coach Vernon on Natalie’s play against Northern: “When Natalie wants to play, she’s really good, especially on the defensive end. You know, sometimes she worries too much about how much she’s scoring. But she doesn’t realize how good of a defender she can be. And tonight her defense turned into offense. Right? So she has to realize that that there are benefits and there are rewards for playing good defense and it does happen on the offensive end. So hopefully that carries over.”

The Northwood Boys JV basketball team won Friday’s home conference game against Northern (Durham, NC) by a score of 51-43.

Gus Fisher (#12) had 16 points, Ashton Elliot (#3) had 11 points, Brandon Toomer (#30) and Cam Stevenson (#32) both had 9 points a piece, Jack Nicholson (#15) had 5 points