10th-seeded Millbrook girls on to regional final after topping Apex Friendship
One of the two double-digit seeded girls basketball teams running off upset victories had to come up short.
Both 10th-seeded Millbrook and 11th-seeded Apex Friendship had pulled off back-to-back upsets of single-digit seeded teams in the N.C. High School Athletic Association 4A East girls, including vanquishing one that had been a conference champion benefitting from a first-round bye.
But Millbrook is the one advancing to the regional final as the Wildcats (24-6) used a 13-0 run in the third quarter to win 58-53 over Apex Friendship (24-3) on Tuesday night at Millbrook’s gym.
The Wildcats’ Keanna Rembert, a 6-foot-1 junior, scored eight of her game-high 17 points in the decisive stretch when Millbrook turned a 33-33 tie into a 46-33 lead over with 3:06 left in the third quarter.
“We knew we had to go on a run,” Rembert said. “We had to get some stops to and score to win the game.”
With the victory, Millbrook faces a familiar foe, Southeast Raleigh. The Wildcats finished as the Cap 7 Conference runner-up to the Bulldogs, falling 74-37 on Jan. 16 at home and 58-34 on Jan. 27 on the road.
Top-seeded Southeast Raleigh (26-1) defeated Ashley to advance to Saturday’s regional final.
“We’ve got to find some game tape on them from somebody,” said Millbrook coach Chris East, throwing his head back jokingly. “We’re looking forward to it, but I just want to enjoy this win tonight. It’s very important we celebrate what we did.”
Millbrook’s tournament run included beating No. 7 South Central in the second round and No. 2 Wakefield, the Northern Athletic champion, in the third.
Apex Friendship, the South Wake Athletic Conference runner-up to Holly Springs, defeated No. 6 Jack Britt and No. 3 Holly Springs. Friendship’s only two regular-season losses were to SWAC champion Holly Springs before defeating the Golden Hawks in the third showdown, 54-42.
Both teams are young, with Millbrook starting two freshmen and Apex Friendship three. But this time of the year, the young players on teams that are fundamentally sound were 20-some games into the year and thus playing more like sophomores or juniors.
“It’s unbelievable,” Apex Friendship coach Scott Campbell said of the two teams’ youth. “Chris and I we’re talking about that. We’re about a year or even two years ahead of where I thought we’d be.”
Both teams had balanced scoring. Millbrook junior Reivan Douglas scored 15 points and freshman Destinee Barnes 14.
For Apex Friendship, senior Indya Nivar led the Patriots with 14 points. Freshman Victoria Sagne and senior Tori Washington added 12 points each.
Millbrook started four underclassmen that accounted for 56 of the team’s 58 points. Apex Friendship started two seniors with three freshmen, with underclassmen accounting for 27 of the 53 points.
Although Apex Friendship’s youth showed in the third quarter, the Patriots battled back from 50-36 deficit early in the fourth quarter to close the deficit to 55-51 when Nivar hit back-to-back baskets. One score from a deft assist from senior point guard Milla Gnann. The other bucket was her second “Sam Jones” bank shot of the night from 18 feet on the side. Jones, an N.C. Central alum, was famed for his side bank shots off the glass during the Boston Celtics’ 1960s dynastic run.
“I’m real proud of my team for the way they battled back,” Campbell said. “It would have been easy to say, ‘Oh, well.’ It was a very intense regional game.”
This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 10:53 PM with the headline "10th-seeded Millbrook girls on to regional final after topping Apex Friendship."
