Northside, Washington boys set for state playoffs; Panthers play for CPC title Saturday

Published 7:16 pm Friday, February 21, 2025

By Jason O. Boyd

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When the NC High School Athletic Association releases the boys’ and girls’ state playoff brackets on Sunday, it will end a week of stress, confusion, and anxiety.

That will then lead to another week of stress and anxiety as the Panthers and Pam Pack join other public school teams that will be vying for a chance to win a state title. Meanwhile, Southside’s boys will be waiting to see if their late-season run will be enough to get them into the postseason.

The brackets will be released this Sunday afternoon by the NCHSAA. The winter weather has created a mess of things around the state regarding getting conference tournaments completed. In many cases, tournament games were not finished and state playoff seedings will be determined by the regular season and a strength of schedule formula that’s used to fill out the brackets in each classification.

The easy part: Washington’s boys

The Eastern Plains Conference Tournament was scrapped after play started on Monday. The weather and the fact that there was no school led to the result. Each of the four remaining teams would have to play at least two games to determine a champion before Saturday’s 11:59 p.m. deadline.

Washington (19-6) at least got some work in on Monday before the weather. The Pam Pack won over Ayden-Grifton, 85-63, after beating the Chargers four days earlier, 88-57, to wrap up the regular season. Before that, Washington beat SouthWest Edgecombe on Feb. 11 to clinch second place in the regular season in the EPC. Farmville Central won the regular season title.

Washington boys basketball coach David Allewalt said after the SouthWest game that he thought his team was playing well and was hopeful of a third meeting with Farmville Central in the EPC Tournament final. Now, they’ll have to hope the two get to meet in the state playoffs, maybe as late as the Class 2A East Regional final.

“It’s the right time to reestablish some things, get rolling, and you never know what can happen,” Allewalt said. “There’s a lot of stuff that’s undecided with state playoff projections. I’ve been looking close, but I feel comfortable with, you know, when we’re at least guaranteed one home state playoff game, no matter what.”

No matter what happens, Washington will have Chaise Smith and Javon Williams, among others, leading the way. Williams eclipsed 1,500 career points in the win over SouthWest Edgecombe, while Smith did the same against Ayden-Grifton after breaking 1,000 points earlier in the season against Goldsboro.

The hard part: Northside and Southside boys

The Panthers (20-4) were trying to get the Coastal Plains Conference Tournament finished with a game against Lejeune scheduled for Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at Camp Lejeune. Northside’s girls were scheduled to play Pamlico County at 3 p.m. in their title game, also at Lejeune. Those games come after Beaufort County Schools canceled classes from Wednesday to Friday due to the winter weather. In previous cases, schools couldn’t play sporting events on the weekend if classes were not in session.

Lejeune won a coin flip last weekend to host the tournament. With the winter weather approaching, the CPC canceled its first-round games and had just the top four seeds play in semifinal games on Tuesday. Then, the title game had to be played by 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, which was mandated by the NCHSAA.

The Devil Pups beat Southside, 74-58, and Northside beat Pamlico County, 71-64. The Seahawks (8-15) got the No. 4 seed as the result of a tie-breaker to determine seeding for the conference tournament. As a result, Southside could be on the outside looking in to get into the state tournament despite winning four straight to end the regular season. That includes beating Pamlico County to force the tiebreaker for the conference tournament.

Northside and Southside had their Tuesday start off in a somewhat confusing way. After the announcement of the CPC going to the semifinals and skipping the first round, both schools were left scrambling. Southside was slated to host East Carteret on Tuesday but then had to go to Lejeune. Northside wasn’t scheduled to play Pamlico County til Wednesday at Lejeune and then had to end up hosting the Hurricanes along with the Northside girls’ game with Southside.

So when basketball began on Tuesday with the Northside girls, the gym was almost empty of spectators, cheerleaders and students. It wasn’t until the second half of the girls’ game that the gym really started to fill up.

Northside’s boys held double-digit leads twice, but Pamlico County came back each time to cut it close.

The Panthers used a 17-2 run in the final 3:21 of the first half for a 39-25 halftime lead. Zi’Mier Alexander had two baskets, Max Vansant scored five straight points, Malachi Moore hit a layup and 3-pointer and Nick Moore banked in a 3-pointer at the buzzer.

The Hurricanes (6-15) cut the margin to eight before Malachi Moore hit two 3-pointers and a layup to start the fourth quarter and build the lead up to 62-46. However, Pamlico County kept driving to the hoop for baskets and getting second, third and fourth chances for rebounds and putbacks, One of the last ones was a layup by Kobe Lane (29 points) with 1:47 left that cut Northside’s lead to 65-62.

“We got in foul trouble on some knick-knack calls early in the game,” Northside coach Jared Adams said. “So a lot of my guys in that third and fourth quarter, which is kind of when it got tight, they were playing with three and four fives. And that does make a difference defensively when you are guarding somebody.

“We didn’t seal their big guy (Lane), which he’s a heck of an athlete. He would go in, get the board, and get a put back. And it’s just, all it was, was finding and locating and boxing them. But we did it in the last two minutes. But that is something that we are gonna get straight in our next practice.”

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