{"id":156500,"date":"2026-03-08T00:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T00:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/156500\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T00:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T00:35:07","slug":"queens-grant-rolls-past-south-stokes-to-nchsaa-state-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/156500\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen\u2019s Grant rolls past South Stokes, to NCHSAA state final"},"content":{"rendered":"

A year ago, Queen\u2019s Grant, a small public charter school in Mint Hill, reached the NCHSAA Western Regional basketball championship game at Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem.<\/p>\n

The moment, for a team made up of lots of freshman, was simply too big.<\/p>\n

The Stallions, playing nervous and unsure of themselves, were blown out by eventual state champion, Charlotte\u2019s Corvian Charter.<\/p>\n

So Queen\u2019s Grant\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

And while Queen\u2019s Grant wasn\u2019t exactly overwhelming in Saturday\u2019s 62-49 win over South Stokes in the 2026 regional final at Hickory\u2019s Lenoir-Rhyne University, the Stallions won their 30th straight game and advanced to their first state final.<\/p>\n

Sophomore Mekhi Allen made 12 of 16 shots and had 27 points. Point guard Preston Scott had eight assists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were nervous,\u201d Queen\u2019s Grant coach Joe Badgett said of his team. \u201cThey were a little tight offensively at the start. The difference in this game and last year is that they weren\u2019t focused on their offense, which means our defense was still really good, which is what wins these games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of that defense \u2014 which held South Stokes to 17 points in the 16-minute first half \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

And next up, Queen\u2019s Grant (34-3), ranked No. 1 in The Observer\u2019s Sweet 16 poll, will play Warren County (14-9) in next week\u2019s championship game. Warren County, a No. 8 seed, beat No. 2 seeded Voyager Academy, 61-55, in the Eastern Regional final on Saturday.<\/p>\n

For South Stokes, the Sauras (24-5) made their second regional final appearance in four years, and played Queen\u2019s Grant in the playoffs for the second straight year. Queen\u2019s Grant won last year\u2019s playoff meeting, 88-59, in the regional semifinals.<\/p>\n

But on Saturday, South Stokes hung around all game, trailing 14-7 after the first quarter and 28-17 at halftime.<\/p>\n

Queen\u2019s Grant \u2014 which owns a win over 8A state finalist West Charlotte \u2014 pushed out to a 22-point lead in the third quarter, but South Stokes kept fighting against a Queen\u2019s Grant team that was averaging 76 points per game in the playoffs and winning by an average of 32.6 points.<\/p>\n

South Stokes trimmed the lead to 13 with 2 minutes, 22 seconds to play, but that was as close as the Sauras would get.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur growth mentally period is different,\u201d Badgett said. \u201cLast 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\u2019s what got you in trouble. You never got a chance to set your defense, and now you\u2019re behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watching Saturday\u2019s win, Badgett said his team learned from all of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis team understands,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018Hey, we\u2019ve got to guard people.\u2019 And that\u2019s what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Game summary<\/p>\n

South Stokes 7 10 12 8 \u2014 37<\/p>\n

Queen\u2019s Grant 14 14 20 4 \u2014 52<\/p>\n

SOUTH STOKES 37 \u2014 Jaffe 5, Tyler 4, Cleghorn 2, Williard 4, Brown 4, Clark 4, Tilley 9, Gray 5<\/p>\n

QUEEN\u2019S GRANT 52 \u2014 Montgomery 9, Allen 27, DeBerry 4, Smith 8, Scott 4<\/p>\n

This story was originally published March 7, 2026 at 4:11 PM.<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Langston Wertz Jr.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Charlotte Observer<\/p>\n

Langston Wertz Jr. is an award-winning sports journalist who has worked at the Observer since 1988. He\u2019s 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 \u201cCharlotte,\u201d when you ask, \u201cWhat city are you from.\u201d
\n Support my work with a digital subscription<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year ago, Queen\u2019s Grant, a small public charter school in Mint Hill, reached the NCHSAA Western Regional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[64691,64690,9,24,63,64688,122,124,123,64689],"class_list":["post-156500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-nc-high-school-basketball","tag-nchsaa-western-regional","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens-grant-charter","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-south-stokes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}