Charlotte’s Corvian Community School is heading to the NCHSAA 1A state championship game

The shots weren’t falling, so Corvian Community found another way to win Monday night.

The Cardinals turned up the defensive pressure in the second half and pulled away from South Stokes 53-41 in the boys’ 1A West regional finals.

The victory sends Corvian Community, a north Charlotte charter school around the corner from Mallard Creek High, into Friday’s 1A state championship game. The Cardinals, in only their fourth season as an N.C. High School Athletic Association member, will face defending 1A champ Wilson Prep in the finals.

The championship game, like others this week in the NCHSAA’s final four event, will be at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Winston-Salem. The game time has not been announced.

Corvian Community will be the first Mecklenburg County school to play for a state championship in the smallest size classification in 74 years, since Matthews School lost 37-25 to Camp Lejeune in the Class B (now 1A) finals in 1950.

Coach Ron Murphy’s team had to step up the defense against South Stokes, because the team was not shooting well. The Cardinals (27-3) were 12-of-49 from the floor through the first three quarters.

But they led 37-32 at that point because they forced the Sauras (29-2) into a load of mistakes. South Stokes finished with 17 turnovers, to Corvian Community’s seven, and the Cardinals had eight steals.

The game turned with South Stokes leading 25-20 and just 1:50 left in the first half.

A short time before that, Murphy called a time out to talk with his team.

“At that point, we hadn’t done anything right,” he said. “I told them, ‘Let’s do something right.’ And they responded.”

Adrian Scott scored on a layup for the Cardinals, A.J. Jackson Jr. hit a pair of free throws, and freshman R.J. Moore Jr. scored on a layup with two seconds left. During that 6-0 run, the Cardinals forced two South Stokes turnovers.

“That was big,” Murphy said of the surge late in the half.

Corvian Community kept it going in the third quarter, and Moore’s 3-pointer with 5:48 left in the period capped a 13-0 Cardinal run. That put Corvian Community up 33-25.

South Stokes went on a 9-2 run early in the fourth quarter and closed to 39-38, but the Cardinals responded again. Jackson hit two free throws, and Jack Hudson added a basket for a 43-38 lead.

The Cardinals’ defense seemed to tire South Stokes down the stretch, and the Sauras did not score a point in the final six minutes until Barry Hairston Jr. hit a 3-pointer with two seconds to play.

The Cardinals shot 28.6 percent from the floor in the game (18-of-63) but helped their cause greatly by connecting on all 14 free throw attempts. Jackson, who was 0-for-9 from the floor, was 8-of-8 from the foul line.

Moore (15 points) and Hudson (14 points, 13 rebounds) led Corvian Community.

South Stokes, buoyed by a huge crowd that traveled the short distance to Wake Forest University’s home gymnasium, got 12 points and 12 rebounds from Korrin N’Diaye.

PHOTOS: Corvian Community advances to state final

This story was originally published March 11, 2024 at 10:36 PM.