It’s no surprise Northeastern and Pasquotank will be playing for the Northeastern Coastal Conference girls basketball championship tonight at 7 p.m. at Elizabeth City State.

After all, they were two of the three teams that were tied for first place, along with Hertford, on the final night the regular season, when Pasquotank knocked off the Lady Eagles 52-40 to win the conference crown after losing the first regular-season meeting between the two Elizabeth City teams by a 54-41 score.

But not too many folks were predicting an Edenton-Pasquotank matchup in tonight’s boys final at 8:30 p.m.

Coming into the tournament, third-seeded Pasquotank had lost three straight games, including one to semifinal opponent Northeastern. And while up-and-down Edenton had won three in a row, the fourth-seeded Aces were pitted against regular-season champ Hertford, which went 12-0 in conference play, in the semifinals.

Yet here they are.

In Wednesday’s semifinals, the Panthers (16-9) dispatched the No. 2 Eagles 56-53 and the Aces (15-8) shocked Hertford 55-53.

Edenton coach Andy Downing is not surprised that the Aces are playing for the title.

“I truly felt once we got in the tournament, we would have a chance,” he said. “We split with Northeastern and Pasquotank and played Hertford twice close. It just took a few things to go our way.”

Those things centered around team defense. The Aces limited the normally high-scoring Bears (19-4) to just 21 points in the first half as they took a six-point lead into the locker room.

“You hold a Hertford team to 21 points in a half, you’ve done something,” Downing said.

Yet they still had to survive a 25-point barrage by Jqwan Ruffin and his desperation 3-point heave at the buzzer that could have won it.

“The difference between this game and the other two (against Hertford) is we played defense all the way through,” Downing said. “And we played together.

“No matter what happened out there, we did not panic.”

“We played real aggressive on the wing and did a good job on their 3-point shooting,” said Edenton senior Junior Barrow. “And we boxed out to get rebounds.”

Barrow, who scored 10 points, led the charge on the boards, which was vital given the closeness of the game.

Daeqwon Horton and Chaquann Martin were also factors inside, along with Jack Downum, a 6-6 sophomore who was called up from the junior varsity for this tournament.

“Jack really played well down the stretch for us,” Downing said.

So did the other JV callup — sophomore guard Markus Holley. After scoring 11 points in the second half of a first-round win over Bertie, he got eight against the Bears.

Jamez Moore led the Edenton offense with 14 points. Horton added eight as the balanced Aces put nine players in the scoring column.

Two years ago, some might have predicted that Edenton would in the championship game tonight. That’s because many of the players on this squad were on the Aces’ JV team that went 19-0 in 2009-10.

There were lots of high hopes for that group.

In the intervening time, however, two key members — Deron Capehart and Brandon Goodwin — saw their basketball careers ended by football injuries and the teamwork and confidence didn’t always seem to be there.

“During the season, we didn’t have too many people playing as a team, they were like separated and looking out for themselves,” Barrow said. “After a couple of losses, for awhile we were just going through the motions.

“But now we’re coming together, working hard in practice and playing hard defense. We want to win that championship.”