Myers Park has ‘no pressure’ as it tries to 3-peat as girls 4A state champ

Myers Park’s girl high school basketball made history last season, becoming the first Mecklenburg County 4A team to repeat as N.C. High School Athletic Association state champions.

Along the way, the Mustangs were ranked as No. 4 in the national polls and captured some widespread attention in a fight with the NCHSAA to accept an invitation to play in the DICKS’ National Championship in New York. Myers Park lost the fight, but still finished 29-1 and won 24 straight games to finish the season.

Now, the Mustangs are back, back without All-Americans D.D. Rogers (N.C. State) and Aliyah Mazyck (Southern Cal), but expectations are still high. Myers Park is No. 2 in the Observer’s preseason Sweet 16 poll and No. 2 in at least one statewide poll of all N.C. teams. Harding’s girls won back-to-back 3A state championships in 2012 and 2013, but no public school girls team from Mecklenburg County has ever won three straight.

Can Myers Park -- which is 119-4 the past four seasons -- be the first?

“You know,” Mustangs coach Barbara Nelson said, “competing against big 4A schools brings challenges and I think you never know where kids are going to end up and who’s got what. It’s too early in the year to think about any of that. This team is taking it one day at a time, one practice at a time.”

Seven players return for Nelson this season as she tries to win her 10th state title. She won seven at private school power Providence Day. On her roster are six kids who are 6-foot or taller. Nelson said it’s the tallest team she’s ever coached. One of the “trees” is 6-1 senior center Stuart Ayer, who was a part time starter last season. Ayer, ranked No. 4 academically in her class, has verbally committed to academic powerhouse Washington & Lee.

Junior Kianna Funderburk, a 5-9 wing, will be another key Mustang this year. But Nelson said Myers Park will be led by two heavily recruited returning starters.

McKenna Haire, a 5-10 junior, is moving to point guard from shooting guard. She sports offers from Michigan State, Wisconsin, Utah, Brigham Young, Georgia Tech, Princeton and Columbia, among others. Senior Chanin Scott, a 5-11 guard who signed with Kentucky Friday, can dunk a tennis ball, Nelson said.

“She’s very very athletic,” Nelson said of Scott. “But if you watch us play this year, it’s going to look different. We’re not the most athletic team overall -- Chanin is very very athletic -- but we’re really big and we can really establish position.”

Myers Park has won 89 straight games against Mecklenburg County teams and hasn’t lost locally since a 66-35 loss to Butler in February 2011. Nelson said she knows teams believe this is the year they can get Myers Park. But she said the Mustangs like it that way.

“Everybody in the world thinks we can’t win this year because we don’t have Aliyah Mazyck and D.D. Rogers,” Nelson said. “There’s no pressure on us. The expectations everybody else in the city has for us are low. People will say, ‘You are ranked this year because of history,’ and that’s OK. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about every second, every minute, measuring ourselves against ourselves -- where we are 10 days from now, two months now. That’s what we’re measuring ourselves against.”

This story was originally published November 13, 2015 at 3:33 PM with the headline "Myers Park has ‘no pressure’ as it tries to 3-peat as girls 4A state champ."