Sunday, February 26, 2012

Mecklenburg County girls basketball on the upswing

• I remember when Mecklenburg County public schools girls' basketball was bad.

In 1986, a phenom named Andrea Stinson -- one of the five best girls to ever play basketball in North Carolina -- led North Mecklenburg to a perfect season and a state title.

It was 20 years before Mecklenburg got another champion, when McDonald's All-American Joy Cheek led South Meck to a title in 2006. The years in between were lean.

But since the Sabres' title, Mecklenburg County has regularly sent multiple teams to the regional playoffs and has been represented in four of the past six 4A finals.

Unbeaten Myers Park will try to extend that run this year in 4A, and Berry and Harding will try to make history, to become the first 3A Mecklenburg team to reach the championship round.


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a feeling Providence will rise again. They have a nice 5'9" forward possibly coming in next year who should helped put them back on the map in terms of girl's basketball.

Anonymous said...

This was a really strong group of Freshmen. Watts (Weddington), Dean (Ardrey Kell), Muhammed (Ardrey Kell), Mrozcek (Myers Park), Mahoney (Robinson) coming off the best sophomore class ever with White (Providence Day), Timpton (Myers Park), Story (Bandy's), Diggs (Hough), Curry (Hopewell), Porter (West Charlotte), Dean (Hough), Brown (Hough), Wingo (East Meck), Brown (Berry). Basketball has improved alot over the past years but until more players play year round it will continue to drop off. Berry has been the school of choice of late and it looks like most of the incoming stronger players talk like they are going there so we may see another powerhouse like Harding has been on the girls side.

Anonymous said...

One thing to remember. The year that South Mecklenburg won the State Championship, they lost the conference Championship to Butler. That same year, many really strong girl players opted not to play. Butler had two (Ashton Ward and Constance Orr). Butler would have likely been competing for state that year as well! The same could be said for the last four or five years with multiple teams. Exciting for Charlotte. I agree that Berry looks like the "Go To" High School for Girls. Rumor is the whole Coulwood Team (Undefeated) will be attending Berry!

Anonymous said...

Well if the whole Coulwood team don't have the grades to get into Berry, they may be attending other schools.

Anonymous said...

The Coulwood girls do have the grades, progress reports are checked tri-weekly and this was a team of scholars not just ballers.