Lake Norman basketball is The Observer’s girls’ high school team of the year
Two years ago, Lake Norman’s girls’ basketball team reached the N.C. 4A state championship game. The Wildcats were a team full of freshmen and sophomores.
They lost, 75-65, to Cary’s Panther Creek High School. The mission after that?
Just get back.
“We were in the state championship game my sophomore year,” Wildcats senior Alexis Shehan said, “and ever since that loss we’ve just been wanting to win that state championship.”
In the 2024 playoffs, Lake Norman — having lost to just one N.C. team all season — fell, 51-48, to Charlotte Catholic in the regional semifinals, or just two games short of the state final.
But in the 2024-25 season, the Wildcats left no doubt, going 30-1 and winning the school’s first girls’ basketball state championship, beating Raleigh’s Wakefield High, 43-41, after junior Rayana Minard got a backdoor pass from Shehan for the game-winner.
Today, the Wildcats are named The Charlotte Observer’s girls’ team of the year for the most recent school year.
Lake Norman didn’t lose to a N.C. team all season and ended the year on a 22-game win streak. The lone loss came to Georgia’s Hebron Christian Academy, which was ranked among the nation’s top 10 teams almost the entire season.
And in the past three seasons, the Wildcats are 87-5 under head coach McKenzie Graham.
“Last year, we got knocked out a little early on,” Shehan said. “I just could not be more excited and proud of his team, that we were able to get that (state championship) win for the seniors. It feels so, like, accomplished right now.”
