A year ago, Queen’s Grant, a small public charter school in Mint Hill, reached the NCHSAA Western Regional basketball championship game at Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem.
The moment, for a team made up of lots of freshman, was simply too big.
The Stallions, playing nervous and unsure of themselves, were blown out by eventual state champion, Charlotte’s Corvian Charter.
So Queen’s Grant’s 2025-26 season essentially has been about getting back to the regionals, and beyond, to show the state of North Carolina that it has a new regional power to deal with.
And while Queen’s Grant wasn’t exactly overwhelming in Saturday’s 62-49 win over South Stokes in the 2026 regional final at Hickory’s Lenoir-Rhyne University, the Stallions won their 30th straight game and advanced to their first state final.
Sophomore Mekhi Allen made 12 of 16 shots and had 27 points. Point guard Preston Scott had eight assists.
“They were nervous,” Queen’s Grant coach Joe Badgett said of his team. “They were a little tight offensively at the start. The difference in this game and last year is that they weren’t focused on their offense, which means our defense was still really good, which is what wins these games.”
Because of that defense — which held South Stokes to 17 points in the 16-minute first half — Badgett will get a chance to become a rare N.C. head coach to try to win NCHSAA public and NCISAA private school state titles. Badgett won multiple private school championships at Carmel Christian School in Matthews.
And next up, Queen’s Grant (34-3), ranked No. 1 in The Observer’s Sweet 16 poll, will play Warren County (14-9) in next week’s championship game. Warren County, a No. 8 seed, beat No. 2 seeded Voyager Academy, 61-55, in the Eastern Regional final on Saturday.
For South Stokes, the Sauras (24-5) made their second regional final appearance in four years, and played Queen’s Grant in the playoffs for the second straight year. Queen’s Grant won last year’s playoff meeting, 88-59, in the regional semifinals.
But on Saturday, South Stokes hung around all game, trailing 14-7 after the first quarter and 28-17 at halftime.
Queen’s Grant — which owns a win over 8A state finalist West Charlotte — pushed out to a 22-point lead in the third quarter, but South Stokes kept fighting against a Queen’s Grant team that was averaging 76 points per game in the playoffs and winning by an average of 32.6 points.
South Stokes trimmed the lead to 13 with 2 minutes, 22 seconds to play, but that was as close as the Sauras would get.
“Our growth mentally period is different,” Badgett said. “Last year we played a very good game last year at South Stokes, which is a very hard thing to do. I said this team might trick me and pull this thing out, but then they got on that stage (at the 2025 regional finals in Winston-Salem) and you could see people trying to go into their own agendas. That’s what got you in trouble. You never got a chance to set your defense, and now you’re behind.”
Watching Saturday’s win, Badgett said his team learned from all of that.
“This team understands,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Hey, we’ve got to guard people.’ And that’s what they do.”
Game summary
South Stokes 7 10 12 8 — 37
Queen’s Grant 14 14 20 4 — 52
SOUTH STOKES 37 — Jaffe 5, Tyler 4, Cleghorn 2, Williard 4, Brown 4, Clark 4, Tilley 9, Gray 5
QUEEN’S GRANT 52 — Montgomery 9, Allen 27, DeBerry 4, Smith 8, Scott 4
This story was originally published March 7, 2026 at 4:11 PM.
The Charlotte Observer
Langston Wertz Jr. is an award-winning sports journalist who has worked at the Observer since 1988. He’s covered everything from Final Fours and NFL to video games and Britney Spears. Wertz — a West Charlotte High and UNC grad — is the rare person who can answer “Charlotte,” when you ask, “What city are you from.”
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