RALEIGH — Northwood Athletic Director Cameron Vernon knew the question was coming.
He’d gotten it from his dad earlier that morning.
“No,” Vernon comfortably told the News + Record on Saturday night when asked if he thought he stepped down as the Chargers’ women’s basketball head coach a season too early. “My father called me this morning and he said to me, ‘Do you regret stepping down?’ … I said, ‘Dad, I’m happier right now to see one of my players as the head coach.’ … It was the right time for her to step in and for me to step away.”
Vernon was referring, of course, to Kerri Snipes — now the head coach of the Chargers, who spent the last four years under him as an assistant coach, along with three years under him as a player from 2009-12.
And this past Saturday, Snipes’ Chargers (30-1, 12-0 in Central 3A) dominated the Enka Jets (16-15, 5-7 in The Mountain 3A/4A), 70-42, in the NCHSAA 3A Women’s Basketball State Championship Game to secure the first team state title in Northwood history — a win that ended a 52-year championship drought in Pittsboro.
She reached the pinnacle in her first season as head coach.
“I think (the players) respond well to her, she’s always cool,” Vernon said. “Our girls looked like a seasoned team. They didn’t look nervous, they didn’t look scared. I think that’s a credit to her preparation this week.”
The Chargers stepped onto the floor at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh — the massive logo of Tuffy, N.C. State’s iconic mascot, gracing mid-court — as if they’d been there before.
If there was an ounce of nervousness among any of Northwood’s players, especially the team’s four seniors, you wouldn’t have known it.
All evening long, the Chargers took it to the Jets.
They ate breakfast, lunch and dinner in the paint, out-rebounding them by 19 boards and out-scoring them by 22 in points in the paint.
They put on an offensive clinic, especially in the first half, shooting 63% from the floor before the halftime break.
They put Enka in a pressure cooker on defense, forcing 21 turnovers and capitalizing off of them greatly, scoring 28 points directly off of miscues.
And after four quarters of beating down the Jets in just about every conceivable way, the final buzzer sounded, the pro-Northwood crowd erupted and the Chargers were named 2021-22 3A state champions.
Following a post-game celebration that saw Northwood players embracing one another, hitting the popular “Griddy” dance and posing for group photos with the trophy, the team’s four seniors — Caroline Allen, Natalie Bell, Myla Marve and Olivia Porter — joined Snipes at the podium for the team’s season-ending press conference.
“Going from Coach Vernon for the last three years to Coach Snipes was definitely a different atmosphere … Coach Vernon would always yell off the court, you could always hear him, but Coach Snipes, not so much, but that’s probably a good thing,” Allen said with a laugh, then turning to Snipes. “But, obviously, whatever she did, it worked. I’m very happy to have you as my coach.”
When Snipes stepped into the head coaching role, she immediately took over a team with a chip on its shoulder.
After falling in heartbreaking fashion in last year’s East Regional Final to the Asheboro Blue Comets — a game played at Northwood, the higher seed, due to COVID-19-related changes to the postseason — which ended their perfect season just one round before the title game, the juniors from that team came back hungrier than ever.
Add Porter to the mix — a senior transfer from Alabama who moved back to the Pittsboro area last summer, who also fell in her state semifinals last season with Auburn High School — and you’ve got the recipe for a motivated squad that’d stop at nothing to earn a championship ring.
“It feels amazing, I feel like I won for two cities, back in Auburn and here,” Porter said. “I was kind of (representing) two teams, essentially, because I knew my old coach was going to be watching this game, so I knew I had to make him proud, as well as my teammates and coach here.
“It just means a lot that I finally reached this point, and I’m the first in my family, so that proves I’m the most athletic one,” joked Porter, who has a brother, Omari, who plays football at Stanford.
Saturday’s title-sealing performance was simply the reward for a hard-fought season, one that saw Northwood outscore its opponents by more than 1,000 points, cruise through nearly its entire schedule and end the year on an impressive 21-game winning streak.
But the team’s seniors — along with players like junior Te’Keyah Bland, who battled back from an early-season leg injury to be named the East Region’s Most Outstanding Player in Saturday’s game — were the primary reason they’d finally reached the mountaintop.
“They’ve been with me for a couple of years, these three that have been here for four years, and Olivia joined in and they’ve been great leaders on the court,” Snipes said. “They motivate their younger teammates, they’re vocal, they’ll call each other out when they see the need to. They really communicate efficiently. They’ve done everything I’ve asked, whether they liked it or not. … They’re a big reason why we’re standing here today.”
For those who made the trip to Reynolds Coliseum for Saturday evening’s state with a Chatham-focused rooting interest, it was a day of mixed emotions.
On one hand, the Chargers finally secured the school’s first state title after being on the precipice so many times.
But on the other, the Chatham Charter Knights (33-2, 10-0 in Central Tar Heel 1A) fell in heartbreaking fashion to the Hayesville Yellow Jackets (28-0, 10-0 in Smoky Mountain 1A), fumbling away a 10-point second-quarter lead to eventually lose in overtime, 54-43, in the 1A men’s basketball state title game.
If the Chargers are any indication, though, sometimes it’s possible to come back stronger from even the most soul-crushing of losses.
And with the Knights being led by a duo of juniors in Adam Harvey and Aamir Mapp and a duo of freshmen in Brennen Oldham and Beau Harvey — without a single senior on the roster — there’s no reason why they can’t write their own storybook ending next year like their Pittsboro counterparts this season.
“Obviously, they’re disappointed, as we all are, because we had a goal, we had a chance to win this game,” Jason Messier, the Knights’ head coach, said after the loss. “But how we respond to this is going to be the key.”
Reporter Victor Hensley can be reached at vhensley@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @Frezeal33.