Success and set-up: Northside’s girls roll in first-place battle; boys gear up for Lejeune rematch

Published 3:02 pm Friday, February 7, 2025

By Jason O. Boyd

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YEATESVILLE, N.C. — The Northside girls’ basketball team had a banner week of play in two games. The boys’ team was hopeful their two games would lead to another in Friday’s showdown with Lejeune.

Northside’s girls played one of their best games of the season in Monday’s 61-33 rout of Pamlico County. The two teams were tied for first place in the Coastal Plains Conference before Monday. The Panthers (18-1, 7-0) now hold a one-game lead with Lejeune on Friday and a rematch with the Hurricanes on Tuesday. Northside also beat Jones Senior, 68-24, on Tuesday.

Northside’s boys beat Pamlico County, 77-36, on Monday and Jones Senior, 80-29, on Tuesday, to improve to 16-3, 6-1 going into the Lejeune game.

Northside’s girls win showdown

The Panthers took Pamlico County out of the game quickly, jumping to a 28-8 lead after a 3-pointer by OJ Cahoon, who finished with 14 points. By the time Pamlico County (18-3, 6-1) reached double digits in scoring, Northside then proceeded to pull even further away.

Cahoon hit another 3-pointer and Piper Johnson completed a 3-point play to push Northside’s lead to 42-20 just before the half.

“I think we pushed ourselves this past two weeks through practice, and practicing hard really gets all of us amped up,” Cahoon said. “I think today we’ve had a really good day, and we focused on really swinging the ball and playing as a team, and I think that really helped us.”

“I just think we were, like, really good together all around,” said Madison Scheffler, who had six points as the Panthers substituted freely from the second quarter on. “It’s like, that’s what kept us from them stopping us, because it wasn’t just one person, it was everyone together.”

Northside coach Michelle Leathers expects a tough challenge when they go to Pamlico County this Tuesday. Having such a good showing on Monday and playing well again against Jones Senior on Tuesday is a good sign of her team’s performance as the regular season winds down.

“One thing I know we’ve been doing is, I’m just being real, we focus a lot on our mental state because people don’t understand the game of basketball,” Leathers said. “That’s very, very important. We’ve got a lot of talent, but mentally, we’ve been focusing on that and things we need to do and don’t judge anybody else and just focus on the things that we can get better at.

“Keep doing some things, working on some things, and it’s really been a blessing that everybody’s feeling better because during the snow time, right before the snow, we had a lot of girls that were sick.”

Panthers ready for rematch

Northside’s boys took a tough 61-42 loss at Lejeune on Jan. 29. That ended a seven-game win streak that started after their loss to Norfolk Collegiate in a Christmas break showcase game.

The Panthers have been playing well since that, pulling away from Southside in the rematch before easy wins over Pamlico County (77-35) and Jones Senior (80-29). In both of those games, the Panthers were able to jump out early, play good defense and get the most out of nearly every player as Northside used several lineups to get work in before the Lejeune rematch.

“That was some good preparation between the two games, before playing Lejeune and the conference championship,” Northside’s Zi’mier Alexander said.

Friday’s game against Lejeune was also Senior Night for the Panthers. That just added a little something extra to the rematch.

“Well, it’s important because it’s Senior Night,” Alexander said. “It might be our last conference game (at Northside), and we just want to get revenge since we lost to (Lejeune) the first time.”

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