Undefeated Southeast Alamance girls beat Eastern 59-42, advance

Southeast Alamance’s girls basketball team defeated Eastern Alamance 59-42 in the Class 5-A East Region fourth-round game at Southeast, advancing to the next round and preserving an undefeated season. The game, played at Southeast before the boys matchup with Wilson Hunt, left Eastern with only its second loss of the season and moved the Stallions forward in the state playoff bracket.

The playoff meeting was the fourth time the two programs met this season. The regular-season Senior Night matchup on Feb. 13 ended with Southeast winning 54-44 after a 12-6 fourth-quarter spurt. Senior guard Shaniya Paylor drew contact driving to the basket that night and accounted for nearly half of Southeast’s third-quarter scoring, and head coach Amy Sarratt said after the Feb. 13 Senior Night win, “We came here with a job to do. Senior night came second because I want to win and we have a goal. We got that done first because we knew what we came here for.” Sarratt also described defensive adjustments she made against Eastern’s perimeter shooting, praising Clara LaChapelle’s work in the paint: “We knew they were going to hit some 3’s, especially Gregory, but I didn’t think they were going to beat us hitting 3’s. I thought they were going to beat us by getting into the paint, so we went to the zone, and Clara especially played a great defensive game, getting steals every time they tried to attack inside.”

Southeast’s march through the bracket to this point included a 65-36 second-round victory over No. 17 seed St. Pauls in which LaChapelle scored 22, and a 56-30 win over ninth-seeded Pikeville Aycock on Saturday in which LaChapelle again scored 22 and Rreanna Johnson added 11 points; Pikeville Aycock finished that season run 18-6. Southeast entered the later rounds listed as undefeated at 27-0 and is aiming for a second consecutive state championship.

Eastern reached the fourth-round meeting as the fourth seed after a 70-43 win over fifth-seeded Seaforth. At the point of that reporting Eastern’s season was listed at 21-5, and the program had not lost to a team other than Southeast since Dec. 10. Rihanna Gregory provided key perimeter scoring during the season; a MaxPreps shooting line from one contest shows Gregory with 18 points on 6-of-15 shooting and she drilled a 3-pointer that trimmed Southeast’s lead to three early in the second half of the Feb. 13 game.

Season box-line fragments available show other Eastern contributors: Makayla Scott with 13 points on 4-of-16 shooting, Bayleigh Burris with 7 points on 3-of-7, A. Trollinger with 8 points on 2-of-7, Ty’Tiana Ross with 3 points on 1-of-11 and Marli Poole scoreless in limited minutes. Those individual lines reflect the mixed offensive production Eastern brought into the playoff rematch and help explain Southeast’s ability to pull away across four meetings.

With the 59-42 playoff victory at Southeast, the Stallions advance to the next round still unbeaten and carrying the momentum created by repeated 22-point efforts from Clara LaChapelle and timely play from senior guard Paylor (listed in some rosters as Shaniya Paylor and in others as Saniya Paylor). Southeast will continue its run toward back-to-back state championships as the sectional bracket narrows.