To say the 2019-2020 basketball season was a banner season would be a vast understatement.
Eight of the 10 high school teams advanced to the state playoffs with six teams taking opening round playoff wins, five moving into the third round, and a pair reaching the regional finals in the Northwood and Chatham Charter boys.
The Northwood boys and Chatham Charter boys both had late leads against Fayetteville Westover and Winston Salem Prep respectively before falling just short of battling for a state championship. Also, the Chatham Central girls lost out to Weldon, which was headed to the 1A state championship, and the Jordan-Matthews boys fell to Farmville Central, which was set to defend its 2A state crown.
In Pittsboro, the Northwood boys closed at 27-3 under coach Matthew Brown while a young Northwood girls team finished 22-6 under coach Cameron Vernon.
At Chatham Charter in Siler City, the Knights boys and girls teams shattered basically every school record in the six-year history of the programs, including the boys going 32-2 under coach Jason Messier and the girls 27-4 under coach Jennifer Dameron.
All four of those teams won conference titles, as did the Chatham Central boys under coach Robert Burke, who posted a 22-6 record overall and shared the 1A Yadkin Valley Conference regular season crown with North Rowan. Woods Charter, under the guidance of Princess Alston, rode the play of Emmi Hutter-DeMarco and Corinn Harrington to make the state playoffs a year after not even fielding a team while finishing at 11-7 overall.
What a great year it was,
And now, below, I present to you the 2019-2020 Chatham News + Record Baker’s Dozen All-County Boys and Girls Basketball Teams...