DURHAM — A young Northwood girl’s basketball team played its best game of the season in a 3A Big Eight Conference tournament opener against Chapel Hill.
Two nights later versus Durham Hillside, the opposite could be said.
The Lady Chargers played about as poorly as they could last Wednesday evening up in Durham as the locals were no match for powerful Hillside.
With that said, the Hornets deserve a great deal of credit in moving into the conference finals with the decisive 55-25 win over the Chargers. Hillside used a relentless pressure defense which basically swarmed Northwood the entire four quarters while allowing just six points for the locals in the opening three stanzas, and seven in the fourth.
“We really struggled tonight with Hillside’s pressure,” said Northwood head coach Cameron Vernon after the tough loss. “They made it very difficult for us to do anything on offense and were able to turn our miscues into easy transition points for them.”
Northwood played tough defense of its own in the opening eight minutes while allowing just nine points.
Hillside broke the game open in the second, however, with a 20-6 run which sent the hosts into the intermission with a commanding 29-12 advantage.
Things only got worse in the second half as the Hornets outscored the Chargers 12-6 in the third to go up 41-18, and 14-7 in the fourth to cap off the easy 55-25 semifinal victory.
Northwood (14-12) failed to place a scorer in double figures. Chandler Adams led the way with nine points while Myla Marve chipped in eight.
Hillside (19-5) received 23 points from Faith Blackstone on 10-of-12 shooting in the victory while Dajhah McFee added nine. Blackstone, a junior, also had 15 rebounds, four assists and six steals in a game.
Next up for Northwood is the opening round of the 3A NCHSAA basketball state playoffs. The Chargers were scheduled to open up in Greensboro against Dudley on Tuesday night.
“Hopefully we can regroup and pick ourselves back up because we have a similar test versus Dudley on Tuesday.”