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GREENSBORO — When you're a school like Shining Light Academy with only 225 students, including about 30 of high school age, putting together a full lineup of varsity sports can be like deciphering a Rubik's cube.

"If a kid's playing one sport," athletics director Danny Robinson said, "they're probably playing most all of them."

The tiny Baptist school on Wendover Avenue reached a new level of athletic achievement last week when its boys and girls basketball teams both reached the championship game at the National Association of Christian Athletes tournament in Dayton, Tenn.

The Knights boys team, coached by Danny McNeill, took second place in the nation in Division V, while the girls, coached by Bill Thacker, also a deacon at the church, captured the first title in school history.

"We didn't know what to expect, but they went in and really played some of their best ball of the year," Robinson said.

The Lady Knights, led by junior Taylor Wimbish, finished third in the state in the North Carolina Christian School Association last year and second this season, falling only to Heritage Christian Academy in Zebulon.

They earned another date with Heritage in the NACA finals, where Wimbish scored 13 of her 21 points in the final quarter to carry Shining Light to a 42-39 win.

All five Lady Knight starters were named to the all-tournament team, and Wimbish received Most Outstanding Player honors for the invitation-only field.

The boys team was so strapped for players that Robinson's son Caleb, a 13-year-old 7th-grader, was called up from the middle school team and moved from power forward to the starting point guard. He was flanked by an 8th-grader, a pair of sophomores who transferred from Ragsdale midway through the year and a junior.

The Knights started no one taller than 6-foot-3 but held a 6-foot-11 opponent in the title game to five points.

"They always give up two inches on the front line," Robinson said. "No one expected them to make it at all. But they play fast, push the tempo and play with a lot of heart."

Between the two teams, one player will be lost to graduation.

"If this team sticks together," Robinson said, "it could be the start of a lot of good things."

CANTY BACK ON MARKET: Unsure about a coaching situation in flux after the firing of Bart Lundy, Ragsdale junior wingman Jay Canty has de-committed from High Point University.

Canty, a 6-foot-5 pogo stick who averaged 22 points a game last season, signed with the Panthers in October, saying he wanted to stay close to home. But after Lundy was released earlier this month following a last-place finish in the Big South, Canty decided to re-open his recruitment.

Canty, who has no timetable on a new decision, had also received interest from some ACC schools and offers from UNCG and Appalachian State.

EVERHART TO LEAD WHEATMORE: Former Ragsdale and Southern Guilford football coach Eugene Everhart has been hired as athletics director and head football coach at Wheatmore High School in Trinity, which is scheduled to open its doors this fall.

Everhart has also coached basketball, baseball, wrestling and track at Central Davidson, Ledford, Thomasville and, most recently, West Davidson.

Contact Tom Keller at 373-7034 or tom.keller@news-record.com