West Charlotte boys knock off West Forsyth, advance to 8A state finals
For the 12th time in West Charlotte’s rich basketball history, it is headed to the state championship game.
And the Lions 74-70 Wednesday afternoon overtime win over previously unbeaten West Forsyth at Lenoir-Rhyne’s Shuford Gymnasium has to be one of their sweetest regional title victories.
“It’s been a great year with the boys,” said veteran Lions coach Jacoby Davis, whose 22-6 team will meet Eastern champion Wilmington Hoggard or Wilmington Laney next week at Winston-Salem’s Joel Coliseum for the N.C. Class 8A championship. “We’re battle-tested by the tough schedule that we’ve played.”
To advance to another state championship game took a strong overtime effort after late by the Titans kept their hope for an unbeaten season alive.
Kaharri Coleman scored seven of his game-high 25 points in the overtime as the Lions would finally pull away from West Forsyth, the top-seeded Western N.C. team that saw its season end at 26-1.
West Charlotte had a chance to win in regulation before a West Forsyth tip-in off an inbounds pass at the buzzer tied the score at 64.
It also came 6.5 seconds after Lions guard Chacho Womack missed the second of two free throws.
“That was on me,” Davis said. “I should’ve called a timeout.”
Not to worry as Davis has a simple message going into the overtime period.
“I told them we’d be fine,” Davis said.
After Coleman’s 3-pointer with 2:07 left to play made it 69-66, the Lions never trailed again as Womack hit three free throws in the final 1:31 to ice the victory.
Coleman’s 25 points led West Charlotte with Womack adding 17, A.C. Pressley 10, Major Cross nine, J’Khai McManus-Wade seven and Sean Johnson six.
The Lions appeared to take control in the third quarter when they built a pair of nine-point leads at 40-31 with 5:03 left and 46-37 with 3:02 left.
But the Titans, who had played only six games decided by 10 or less points this season, rallied to take the lead early in the fourth quarter - the last at 58-57 with 4:25 to play in regulation.
West Charlotte again played without 6-foot-7 junior Janon Singh, a midseason transfer from Oak Hill, Va., Academy, who is out for the season with a knee injury.
“He went through a lot just get here,” Davis said of Singh, who didn’t join West Charlotte’s team until January. “And then he tears his ACL. But these guys on the team have really rallied around him and want to win a state championship for him.”
West Charlotte previously won the 1963 and 1966 state titles in the old N.C. High School Athletic Conference before adding N.C. High School Athletic Association championships in 1986, 1991, 1992, 1999, 2011 and 2022.
The Lions were NCHSAC runner-up in 1965 and NCHSAA runner-ups in 1968 and 2012.
This story was originally published March 4, 2026 at 3:00 PM.
