Northwood's basketball team wins Upset of the Year for victory over Hillside

​​​Northwood's 55-52 win over Hillside in boys' basketball on Feb. 7 has been named as the upset of the year at HighSchoolOT Honors.

The win helped propel the Chargers to a 19-10 finish for the season that was capped by a surprising playoff run for a team that was seeded 23rd in the 3A state playoffs bracket.

Hillside was undefeated that night, but Northwood took the game right to the Hornets out of the gate, building up a sizable lead early on.

"Going into halftime we were up," head coach Matt Brown said of the contest. "We were controlling the tempo and not letting them get second chance points, not turning it over... playing our game. I kind of knew that we had a really good shot."

Hillside was able to mount a rally to get back into the game, but the Chargers re-established control to finish off the upset.

The Chargers didn't generate any immediate momentum from the victory, as they dropped their following three contexts, but coach Brown and the players credit knocking off the unbeaten Hornets with giving them the confidence they needed to take down Southern Durham and East Wake in the playoffs.

"After that Hillside game, I knew we could probably do something special in the tournament," Brown said.

"I feel like it really boosted us," Aaron Ross added. "Guys started to buy into the program, listen to coach Brown more and just feel like we could actually do something special."

The game beat out other nominees that included Cary over Wakefield in girls' basketball, Scotland County over Cardinal Gibbons in football, Sanderson over Cardinal Gibbons in girls' tennis and Leesville Road over Millbrook in boys' basketball.

Northwood's team was filled with juniors, and returns a lot of key pieces from last year's successful team.