Great Day/Night on Saturday for Guilford County Girls Basketball, as Northwest and Northern bring home State Titles again:Cox Mill-Jacksonville Northside boys a pretty good ball game too

Let’s go with Northwest, Northern and Northside today as the teams that got our attention and kept our attention Today/Tonight at the 2018 NCHSAA Tournament Championships….

A lot of what happened today was due to duos doing the job and helping their teams execute and get the job done…
You had Liz Kitley and Cayla King team up to produce 33 points between them for Northwest Guilford and Kitley was a dominating presence in the paint for the Vikings, scoring 18 points and snatching 8 rebounds…

King played a major role in the Viking victory producing 15 points, while adding 3 assists, two blocks and a pair of steals. King was 11 of 12 from the foul line and that was key for King, Kitley and the Vikings finishing off Southeast Raleigh tonight, to get the big win at the Dean E. Smith Center…

Bria Gibbs only pumped in 4 points for Northwest, but she hit a late shot on a stick-back and that seemed to be the shot that really got the Vikings rolling to their second straight state title….Gibbs with the stick-back and ‘Little’ Lindsay Gauldin was like gold, like “money in the bank” for NWG, with her senior leadership paying dividends late in the contest, when everything could have been breaking down, but it wasn’t, things were looking up for the Vikes and it was their night and another big plus for NWG was their 23 trips to the free throw line, where they converted 18-23 FT’s and SE Raleigh only made 8 visits to the line, hitting 5 of their attempts…

Wow, we were there and we saw it, NWG wins the NCHSAA 4-A State Title, 44-36 over Southeast Raleigh…

Northwest was out-scored 14-4 and trailed by 10 points at the end of the first quarter, but get this number….

This one really drives us home….Last Saturday night Northwest Guilford out-scored Mallard Creek, 17-4 in the 4th quarter of the game, to win the West Regional Title at UNCG and get this here friends, tonight, in Chapel Hill, Northwest Guilford out-scored Southeast Raleigh 17-4 in the 4th quarter, to capture the 2018 title at the Dean Dome….That is almost metaphoric, NWG 17-4 was the score, as NWG wins games in the 4th quarter…..WOW!!!!!

Northern Guilford’s dynamic duo of Elissa Cunane and Kassie Robakiewicz combined for 47 points of the NG 60-point total and man those two, Cunane and Robakiewicz really went to work and it paid off for the Nighthawks…That is a load and when you add up what Cuname, Robakiewicz and fellow-senior Mercedes Wampler were averaging coming into the game, you are talking right at 45 points a game for NG and with those three, Cunane, Robakiewicz and Wampler getting ready to graduate this Spring, there goes right at 80% of Northern’s scoring…Those 3, Cunane, Robakiewicz and Wampler have really left their imprint on the Northern Guilford girls basketball program and walk away with 3 straight state championship game appearances and back-to-back NCHSAA 3-A State Titles….

WOW, give me some more of that Cunane, Robakiewicz and Wampler diet of basketball talent….

In today/tonight’s title game, Robakiewicz was able to bring home the cabbage and Kassie put some mustard on her last game in a Nighthawk uniform, as she was able to shoot five of six from beyond the three-point arc and Kassie was nine of 13 from the floor posting a team-leading 24 points, with a pair of assists and two rebounds.

It turned out to be a “Classic for Kassie”….And what about Cunane in the lane, with the chance to play on the same floor she will suit up and play on in college, when she goes to work for the N.C. State Wolfpack women…

Cunane was not going insane in the lane, but nothing about her game was plain, as Elissa scored 23 points and had 21 rebounds….The 23 points are big, but those 21 rebounds are huge, as that control of the boards, pretty much allows Northern Guilford to control the game….

Way to go Northern Guilford and congrats to the Nighthawks on the 2018 3-A State Championship and the three I was mentioning, Cunane, Robakiewicz and Wampler will be missed…If Northern Guilford ever established a Sports Hall of Fame, I can see at least part of this trio, making the Hall….

My full disclosure is that I was not at the NG-Jacksonville game, but I did study my post game notes and we worked hard and I think we did a decent job of detailing/covering the Nighthawk girls and how they got their title….

We were in Chapel Hill with NWG and our team with Kris Walser and Coach Darryl Steele were in Raleigh broadcasting the NG Nighthawks…I would be telling you a lie if I didn’t say I was worried about not being with Northern Guilford today…I had called/announced 7 previous Northern Guilford State Championship games and they had never lost, going 7 of 7…Four football titles, 2 basketball titles(one boys and one girls), with the boys title later being vacated and there was last year’s state title in the baseball….What happened today proves I was living in a smoke screen…..NG doesn’t need me they got it done and they have won again and this time, Kris Walser and Darryl Steele help NG steal one/win the big one, and that really means they earned it and got it done the right way and sometimes the right way, might be the hard, but our Guilford County teams got it done again….

Great job Nighthawks and Vikings as you made Guilford County very proud again today with your second consecutive state titles….NWG takes it 44-36 and NG goes home a 60-52 victor, both Guilford County teams winning by an identical eight points….WOW!!!!!

And what about that Cox Mill-Jacksonville Northside game for the Boys 3-A State Championship….Cox Mill slips by Northside 65-63 and Northside gave Cox Mill all the Chargers wanted and more, with that score being so tight that late in the night/late in the game, Northside hit a three-point shot that was good and that shot would have given Northside the win, 66-65…

It was ruled that Northside’s Ramierez, the three-point shooter, had stepped on the sideline before he hit the game-winning shot and he was out-of-bounds and the game-winner ended up being the game-ender and the season-ender and the win-streak ender for Northside, stopping the Jacksonville Northside Monarchs 59-game winning streak, over the past two seasons…..

Wendell Moore Jr., the Cox Mill Chargers top player had run into a trap on the next-to-the-last possession of the game for Cox Mill and it looked like Moore Jr. had traveled, but Northside’s Kirkendoll was called for a block and Moore Jr. went to his end of the court and hit the two free throws that gave Cox Mill, the 65-63 win…If the call goes the other way, Northside ball and the Monarchs are still tied with Cox Mill at 63-all and if Northside with the ball, can make call, that might just win them the game, or send it into Overtime…..

What a game and Cox Mill with back-to-back State 3-A Boys Titles, having beaten Eastern Guilford 70-66 in 2017 and now tonight, Cox Mill gets past Jacksonville Northside, 65-63….Cox Mill will continue to win a lot of basketball games with Moore Jr. due back next season for his senior year, but the Cox Mill Chargers have seen teams bring the fight right to them, in the Championships games over the two-year span, that has seen them reign supreme in North Carolina Boys 3-A Basketball……

3 thoughts on “Great Day/Night on Saturday for Guilford County Girls Basketball, as Northwest and Northern bring home State Titles again:Cox Mill-Jacksonville Northside boys a pretty good ball game too

  1. STANDING OVATION to the Northern Guilford ladies and the Northwest Guilford ladies !!! I kept switching back and forth on TV to these two games, and both were extremely exciting . The Northwest game was a real nail biter, with Northwest taking the lead with only two minutes or so remaining in the contest. Switching back and forth from the Indy boys game and the Cox Mill vs. Northside game, I really believe Cox Mill or Northside could have beaten either Indy or Heritage. Again, Mister Durham, thanks to you and the staff at GreensboroSports for another year of excellent coverage.

  2. To sum up our basketball seasons, I use the choice words of two men who did excellent work in their chosen fields of business/interest…

    Woody Durham said, Go where you Go and Do what you Do”….

    Rodney Dangerfield said,”Look out for #1 and try not to step in #2″….

    You put them both(Mr. Durham and Mr. Dangerfield) together and it gives us a great closing statement for high school basketball in 2017-2018:

    “Go where you Go and Do what you Do, look out for #1 and try not to step in #2″……

    Very satisfying season for our local girls basketball teams and I can not think of a better way for them to go out/close out the season…….

    Mr. GSO Triple5, thanks for your input…

  3. All three of the Northern Guilford girls would be in their hall of fame. Mercedes is the unheralded one in the group. If you have watched the games, she is a lock down defender. She always gets the most difficult assignment. She is the all time leader in steals at NG. All three of these girls have led to the team’s success.

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