Chambers girls basketball comes back to oust Charlotte Catholic in NCHSAA playoffs

Chambers girls’ basketball coach Donnell Rhyne isn’t certain his team could have held off Charlotte Catholic if the two teams had played a month ago.

“It was the conference tournament before we really started to play together,” says Rhyne, referring to the Queen City 3A-4A Tournament last month. “That’s when we started trusting one another and really playing together.”

Saturday afternoon, when Charlotte Catholic battled back from a big deficit and took the lead, Rhyne’s Cougars held their ground and eventually pulled away to a 45-36 victory in the 4A girls’ Western Regional finals.

Chambers (23-6), the defending 4A girls’ state champion, is headed back to the finals again next Saturday. Charlotte Catholic finished 28-3.

“This is a team of new faces,” Rhyne says. “I have only one returning player from last season’s state championship team. It took a while for us to jell.”

The Cougars jelled from the start Saturday, playing at McDowell High’s gymnasium.

They jumped to a 9-2 lead and maintained the edge until the final two minutes of the third quarter.

Chambers led 28-22 with about five minutes left in the third period, but Charlotte Catholic caught fire. Alanis Diaz’s second 3-pointer of the quarter tied the contest at 30-30 with 1:41 left.

And with 18 seconds to play, the Cougars pulled ahead for the first time, 32-31, on a Harper McKain layup.

“I just told our team to play their game,” Rhyne says. “And they did.”

The contest was tied 34-34 with 6:24 to play. From that point on, the Cougars scored only two points. Chambers took the lead on a basket by Trinity Moreland, the only returning starter from the 2021 state championship team.

Meanwhile, the Cougars turned the ball over four times in a span of about three minutes.

At least five times in the closing minutes, Charlotte Catholic either missed a shot or turned the ball over, at a time when a basket might have tied the contest.

“Those mistakes at the end really hurt us,” Cougars’ coach Robert Conrad said. “We had the opportunities. Our team really battled all the way.”

Mila Holloway’s steal and layup with 35 seconds remaining put the Cougars ahead 44-34 and sealed the victory.

“Mila Holloway hit some big shots at the right time,” Rhyne says.

He says the real star of the game was Seini Hicks, who scored only two points. But Hicks was assigned with defending Diaz down the stretch.

“She was running all over the place,” Rhyne says of Hicks. Diaz did not score in the fourth quarter.

“I’m really proud of them,” Rhyne says. “I’m proud of the way they worked so hard and finally came together. This was fun to watch.”

PHOTOS: Chambers vs. Charlotte Catholic

Three who made a difference

Mila Holloway, Chambers: Holloway scored 11 points and made several key defensive plays in the second half.

Alanis Diaz Charlotte Catholic: A 5-8 senior guard, Diaz hit four 3-pointers and scored a game-high 15 points.

Zoe Henderson, Chambers: A 5-11 junior, Henderson scored 11 points, including five of her team’s 14 points in the fourth quarter.

Just noting

▪ Charlotte Catholic is a young team, with only two seniors seeing a lot of playing time. Blanca Thomas, the Cougars’ 6-5 sophomore center, had three blocked shots and 10 rebounds.

▪ This was Chambers’ third consecutive 4A girls’ regional championship. The Cougars won in 2020 but never got to play in a title game because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They repeated last year and won the state title.

▪ There was considerable conversation among fans, players and coaches about the N.C. High School Athletic Association’s decision to have four Charlotte-area schools travel 100 miles each way to play in the West finals. But to be fair, McDowell County staff was gracious, and the gym was spacious (3,100-seat capacity).

▪ This was Charlotte Catholic’s farthest advance in the girls’ state playoffs this century.

▪ Each team entered with a nine-game winning streak. Chambers and Charlotte Catholic had not met in girls’ basketball before Saturday.

▪ Neither team shot well from the floor. Chambers hit 13-of-40, for 32 percent. Charlotte Catholic connected on 13-of-43, for 30 percent. Chambers outrebounded the Cougars 29-26.

Box score

Chambers 9 14 8 14 – 45

Charlotte Catholic 5 13 14 4 – 36

CHAMBERS: El 6; Mila Holloway 11; Hicks 2; Zoe Henderson 11; Moreland 4; Creech 3; Harris 3; Hall 0; Decker 3.

CHARLOTTE CATHOLIC: McArdle 0; Fava 4; Alanis Diaz 15; Thomas 9; Gough 4; Schachte 0; McKain 4.

This story was originally published March 5, 2022 at 5:02 PM.