CIAA: Winston-Salem State completes dramatic turnaround with women’s title

Nevaeh Farmer, like much of the Winston-Salem State women’s basketball roster, is new to the program and new to the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, playing for her third program in three years.

On Saturday afternoon, on the strength of a 24-point, five-steal performance, Farmer led Winston-Salem to something else new to the program — a CIAA championship. The Rams toppled Fayetteville State 60-43 at CFG Bank Arena, leading wire to wire and maintaining a lead of at least 12 points for the entirety of the second half.

Farmer, Virginia Union transfer Maia Charles (10 points, seven rebounds, six steals and four blocks) and Temple transfer Makayla Waleed (14 points, five rebounds) led Winston-Salem. Waleed, a former St. Vincent Pallotti and Emerge Christian Academy star, is the team’s lone Maryland native.

For Fayetteville State, four-year starter Talia Trotter, who is from Ellicott City, scored 14 points and collected nine rebounds as the team’s standout performer. Samiyah Barker notched 12 points off the bench.

The title game was an anticipated clash between the long-standing power Fayetteville State, the two-time defending champion, and 2026’s new kid, Winston-Salem. The Rams’ head coach, Tierra Terry, is a Winston-Salem alumnus and joined the program after five years at Virginia Union, where she lost to Fayetteville State in last year’s semifinals.

Upon her arrival, Terry brought together a talented group of transfers and transformed the Rams from a last-place team in 2025 to the conference’s top seed in 2026, going 14-2 in CIAA play in the regular season. The programs split their matchups in the regular season.

“[We recruited] the right combination of players,” Terry said. “Winning starts in the mind. [We] recruited people who wanted to win, that would do what it takes to win. Our young women are tough; they’re resilient.”

With two teams ranking among the best in the CIAA in many categories, one potential X-factor stood out. Winston-Salem ranked second in the CIAA in turnover margin, and the Broncos were seventh.

That disparity was on display all game, with Fayetteville doubling Winston-Salem in turnovers (24-12), as the Rams earned 13 steals, 11 coming from Charles and Farmer. Fayetteville turned the ball over nine times in the first quarter, while Winston-Salem coughed it up just twice.

“Our players bought into that aggressive, trapping defense, being pesky,” Terry said. “When we play at a high level like that, it’s hard to get past our guards.”

Individually, the first quarter belonged to Farmer, as the junior forward knocked down three 3–pointers and notched 11 points. Both offenses struggled, with the Rams leading 7-4 as the clock ticked under three minutes to play.

Farmer ignited the sizable Winston-Salem crowd with a 3-pointer to break a scoring drought of 3:29. After the Broncos got a layup, steal and 3-pointer to narrow the deficit to one point, the Rams closed on a 7-0 run, punctuated by Farmer’s third triple of the quarter, to claim a 17-9 advantage.

Again, both offenses were quieter to start the second quarter, and, again, Winston-Salem went hot down the stretch, opening a 37-18 lead at halftime.

While Farmer scored another seven points in the quarter, Waleed was a major spark for the Rams. She started the scoring with her first made 3. Farmer added another as Winston-Salem pushed its advantage to 12 points at 23–11.

The Rams slowed for a bit, scoring just three points over the next 4:40 of game time, but their defensive pressure prevented the Broncos from seriously closing the gap. Then, in a two-minute span, the Rams ripped off an 11-2 run.

“Our identity is defense,” Terry said. “The days we stay consistent to what our identity is, we get great results.”

Beyond Farmer and Charles, the Rams got a standout defensive effort from Jakaiya Mack, a four-year player for Winston-Salem. Mack notched two steals, led the Rams with nine rebounds and contributed five points and an assist.

Waleed started the 11-2 run with a pair of makes from the free throw line and closed it with a 3-pointer with a defender in her face. In between, she drove the court in transition and dished to Farmer, who faked a shot from the corner, spun around a defender and made the driving layup for the highlight-reel play. The run extended Winston-Salem’s lead to 37-16, its largest lead of the game.

Trotter scored Fayetteville’s first six points of the third quarter, adding an assist and forcing a travel and Rams turnover, facilitating an 8-2 run over the first five minutes.

“She’s a warrior, an all-time great for our school, a champion, an all-conference player, our captain, our leader,” Fayetteville head coach Tyreece Brown said. “She will be missed.”

Despite some momentum, Fayetteville faced an uphill climb against the Rams’ defense, which forced the Broncos into long scoring droughts.

For the third straight quarter, Fayetteville went over 3 1/2 minutes without making a shot from the field in the middle portion of the quarter. Winston-Salem struggled to generate much offense but did enough to keep the Broncos at bay, never leading by fewer than 12 in the quarter.

The fourth remained much the same. Winston-Salem’s defense refused to break, again limiting the Broncos to short spurts of offense and no sustained runs.

Waleed drained a pair of jumpers in the opening 72 seconds of the frame, and Fayetteville State did not draw any closer than a dozen points. With 2:40 to play, Waleed drove to the basket and popped one off the glass, extending the advantage to 59-42, and the Winston-Salem crowd, loud all game, peaked in volume.

“It’s surreal for me, because I played at Winston, and I get to say that our team was the first to put that banner up,” Terry said. “We kept looking at that empty space, and we didn’t like that. … That drove us daily, even more so than the ring, that empty space.”

Waleed, meanwhile, savored winning the trophy just 25 minutes from her high school. “It was amazing. My mom, my dad, my siblings were here. My uncle came in from Thailand to see the championship, my friends from Philadelphia came down,” she said. “It was a full-circle moment. It was a great feeling, I couldn’t have prayed it up any better.”

Winston-Salem completed its worst-to-first turnaround and received the automatic bid to the NCAA Division II tournament. Fayetteville, ranked fifth in the Atlantic region heading into the tournament, should find its way into the field with an at-large bid.

This article has been updated.