No matter when Stone Memorial and Cumberland County get together on the basketball court, it is always exciting. Records really don’t matter, emotions flow, and friendships are put on the back burner.
That was the case Friday night when the girls teams from school met at CCHS. Stone Memorial is the No. 1 team in Class 3A, while Cumberland County and Miss Basketball finalist Sydney Wilhite is one of the most improved teams in the state.
It took a late fourth-quarter rally for Stone Memorial to pull away for the 61-51 District 7 3A victory.
“This is without a doubt the best league in the state,” said Stone coach Mike Buck. “Cumberland County gave us all we wanted tonight. So, this really satisfying. Our girls felt a little bad, kind of didn’t play very well tonight. But I was letting them know, listen, I’ve been a part of two state championships, and there’s always struggle involved in that.
“The work ethic and the character and the competitive spirit of these guys, I know it’s a broken record, but that’s why we’re here. They’re unselfish. They play hard as possible. They never quit. Really proud of this group.”
The win pushes the Stone Memorial record to 23-3 and 7-1 in the district. Cumberland County falls to 15-13 and 2-6 in league play.
Boasting only a two-point margin heading into the fourth period, Stone Memorial began to pull away. Offensively, the Lady Panthers got buckets from Ashley Whittenburg, Lexi Clark and Ella Jane May.
Defensively, they held Cumberland County to only 10 points in the period. Each of the buckets came from Wilhite and Olivia Futrell.
“Defensively, I didn’t think we were great defensively. I think we left a whole bunch of points on the board,” Buck said. “We’re the favorite coming into this, across town, all that stuff. That puts pressure on us. We can’t snap our fingers and be up 20.
“That’s not how it works. We made a couple of adjustments at halftime. They’ve got to believe in who they are. They know what they’re doing and do a really good job when we lock in like that.”
Stone Memorial got out on top early. Whittenburg, Brooklyn Lane and Lauren Clark pushed the Lady Panthers to an 18-9 advantage after the first period. Futrell caught for CCHS in the first half. She got help from Mady Spriggs.
Emma Smith and Bella Wyatt kicked things into gear in the second period for Stone Memorial. Buckets by Wilhite, Caylin Hale and Carlie Killeen kept the Lady Jets within striking distance as Stone led 30-23 at halftime.
“In the second half, we found ourselves in kind of a dogfight, so we needed to kind of dig in and be us,” Buck said. “We did a better job of executing some things there. We got some things that we wanted and that kind of gave us some relief there from that run that they were on.”
Lexi Clark led Stone in scoring with 19 points. Whittenburg chipped in 14 and Lane had nine. May scored six, while Lauren Clark and Emma Smith tallied five each. Wyatt contributed three.
Wilhite set the pace for Cumberland County with 20 points. Futrell had 13 and Spriggs tallied 12. Killeen scored four points and Hale chipped in with two.
‘Being the No. 1 seed, the regular season District 7AAA champions, that has a nice ring to it,” Buck said.