{"id":9464,"date":"2025-03-01T23:01:04","date_gmt":"2025-03-02T04:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.coastalpreps.com\/girls-basketball\/?p=9464"},"modified":"2025-03-02T00:10:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-02T05:10:06","slug":"wilmington-christian-academy-claims-first-girls-basketball-state-title-since-2000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coastalpreps.com\/girls-basketball\/wilmington-christian-academy-claims-first-girls-basketball-state-title-since-2000\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilmington Christian Academy claims first girls basketball state title since 2000"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It wasn&#8217;t an easy decision to make, but it certainly turned out to be the correct one.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Wilmington Christian Academy didn&#8217;t field a varsity girls basketball team during the 2022-23 season. With a young roster, it was decided the group would instead play a JV schedule to build confidence.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday night the payoff came as the Patriots claimed the NCCSA 2A state title with a 31-25 victory over Wilson Christian Academy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It was the first championship for the program since 2000 and the first 20-win season since 2010-11.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">FINAL: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCA_patriots?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@WCA_patriots<\/a> 31, Wilson Christian Academy 25<\/p>\n<p>Patriots claim their first state title since 2000!!!<\/p>\n<p>Mallory Deutsch led WCA with 9 points, while fellow freshman Ava Gray added 7 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ejgNHNAvCN\">pic.twitter.com\/ejgNHNAvCN<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 CoastalPreps &#8211; Tim Hower (@CoastalPreps) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CoastalPreps\/status\/1896007069322674564?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 2, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We were definitely thinking for the future&#8221; said first-year coach and athletic director Chris Staton. &#8220;It was really the group of coaches we had at that time who could see that we had some talented girls in the lower grades.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We wanted to teach them the game of basketball and have them play at their level against equal competition so they could gain confidence.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>WCA (20-7) was led Saturday night by a pair of freshmen &#8211; Mallory Deutsch (nine points) and Ava Gray (seven points).&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>One of the team&#8217;s strengths all season was their ability to have different players step up offensively on any given night.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In Friday&#8217;s semifinal win, senior forward Kaylie Naki poured in 15 points. She suffered a knee injury just seconds into the championship game and was unable to return, but her teammates picked her up and allowed her to end her high school career with a memory of the lifetime.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There were tons of tears of joy in the locker room after the game, but there were also tears because Kaylie didn&#8217;t get to experience it on the court with them, and they all have so much love for her.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s been our glue all season. Her goal for this year was to be a team leader, and she did that by bringing the freshmen in and making them feel a part of the team early in the season.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9466\" src=\"https:\/\/www.coastalpreps.com\/girls-basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/03\/IMG_20250301_225738.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1014\" height=\"757\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.coastalpreps.com\/girls-basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/03\/IMG_20250301_225738.jpg 1014w, https:\/\/www.coastalpreps.com\/girls-basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/03\/IMG_20250301_225738-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.coastalpreps.com\/girls-basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/03\/IMG_20250301_225738-768x573.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.coastalpreps.com\/girls-basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/03\/IMG_20250301_225738-650x485.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.coastalpreps.com\/girls-basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/03\/IMG_20250301_225738-128x96.jpg 128w, https:\/\/www.coastalpreps.com\/girls-basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/03\/IMG_20250301_225738-32x24.jpg 32w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1014px) 100vw, 1014px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A mid-range jumper from senior Marcie Squires midway through the first quarter gave the Patriots a 4-3 lead, and they wouldn&#8217;t trail again.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The advantage grew to 16-6 at halftime thanks to an outstanding defensive effort, but the Chargers rallied back and trailed 22-19 after three quarters.<\/p>\n<p>After taking a hard fall in the third quarter and spending several minutes on the bench, Deutsch returned and buried a 3-pointer from the top of the key less than two minutes into the third quarter.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Neither team scored for four minutes until Gray made a layup to increase the Wilmington Christian Academy lead to eight points.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Wilson Christian Academy (24-4) made one final push and cut the deficit to 28-25 following a pair of free throws with 1:11 remaining, but Deutsch sealed the victory by making three of her four free throw attempts down the stretch.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the day, the Wilmington Christian Academy JV team capped an unbeaten season with its second consecutive state title following a&nbsp;30-22 win over Union Grove Christian.<\/p>\n<p>Between the varsity and JV teams, the Patriots have two eighth graders, six freshmen and six sophomores.<\/p>\n<p>Only four seniors will graduate &#8211; Naki, Squires, Katelyn McCurry and Lindsey Henderson &#8211; so there&#8217;s a good chance it won&#8217;t take another 25 years for a title to come&nbsp;back to Wilmington.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It wasn&rsquo;t an easy decision to make, but it certainly turned out to be the correct one.&nbsp; Wilmington Christian Academy didn&rsquo;t field a varsity girls basketball team during the 2022-23 season. With a young roster, it was decided the group would instead play a JV schedule to build confidence.&nbsp; On Saturday night the payoff came [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[191],"tags":[337],"class_list":["post-9464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-wilmington-christian-academy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Wilmington Christian Academy claims first girls basketball state title since 2000 - Girls Basketball<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.coastalpreps.com\/girls-basketball\/wilmington-christian-academy-claims-first-girls-basketball-state-title-since-2000\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wilmington Christian Academy claims first girls basketball state title since 2000 - Girls Basketball\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It wasn&rsquo;t an easy decision to make, but it certainly turned out to be the correct one.&nbsp; Wilmington Christian Academy didn&rsquo;t field a varsity girls basketball team during the 2022-23 season. 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