Wayne Country Day's girls rout Northeast

By Andrew Stevens
Published in Sports on February 20, 2008 2:37 PM

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The postseason.

Eric Perry hardly considered it a reality for Wayne Country Day.

The first-year girls basketball coach watched his young team struggle for nine games and wondered if the team chemistry would ever develop.

Well, 15 consecutive victories later, the state-ranked Chargers are in the quarterfinals of the N.C. Independent Schools Athletic Association Class 1-A playoffs.

Wayne Country Day (17-7 overall) eliminated Northeast Academy 60-29 on Tuesday evening and opposes Terra Ceia at 4 p.m. Thursday at Cary Academy.

"We have a couple of freshman, a first-time coach and an eighth-grade point guard. We just grew up," Perry said. "I grew up as a coach and they grew up as a team. The light has clicked and at the right time, thank God.

"Our girls are really refocused on the goal at hand. Our goal is to win a state championship."

Eighth-grade point guard Catherine Ford spearheaded an offensive attack that dissected the Eagles 2-3 zone all night. Ford constantly found holes in the Eagles' defense, and either dished the ball off to teammates or penetrated for layups.

Ford provided a game-high 14 points, including 10 in the final quarter.

"Not many people know Catherine was sick for the conference championship game on Saturday night," Perry said. "She had her mojo back tonight."

The Eagles hung around for a while and rattled off five unanswered points to start the second quarter, pulling to within 14-10.

Wayne Country Day answered with a 20-0 run that carried over into the second half and Northeast never recovered. The Eagles (12-13) failed to score during the final six-plus minutes of the first half and struggled to solve the Chargers' zone defense.

Northeast trailed 34-10 just seconds into the third quarter.

"We didn't know what to expect, so we started off in what we call our base defense," Perry said. "The girls were active in the passing lanes and they boxed out. It was just good solid defense and that's a tribute to the girls."

Perry got production off his bench as well with Wayne Country Day's reserves outscoring Northeast's subs 16-0. Bridgette Briggs supplied 10 points for the Chargers, while Brooke Norris and Kim Martell each had eight.

Callie Burgess led the Eagles with 12.