LANDIS — Kristen McNeely did a lot of damage while scoring just four points for West Rowan’s girls basketball team Wednesday night.

The senior guard contributed a career-high 10 assists while helping the Falcons roll past South Rowan 56-39 at the South gym.

“I feel like, being a senior, I have more responsibility,” said McNeely, who did more shooting and less passing in her first three years on the West varsity. “I need to get the ball to people like Danielle (Scearce), Shameeka (Wansley) and Sara (Pieper) and all of them.”

Pieper, who had several assists of her own and deserved at least a half dozen more with some excellent passes, led West’s scoring with 15 points, while freshman Hillary Hampton added 14.

West, now 5-0, had defeated South 65-40 at West last month, so coach Angie Waddell and her players had to guard against overconfidence.

“At the beginning of the game, she (Waddell) said, ‘You guys look flat.’ She said, ‘I’m not flat, are y’all flat?’ We were like, No!” said McNeely.

West had defeated big rival East Rowan 48-38 the previous night in an important South Piedmont Conference game, and Waddell was concerned about playing back-to-back contests.

“It’s kind of hard to play back-to-back going from a conference game to a non-conference game.If you played the team before and beat them, you have a tendency to wonder if you’re going to come out flat. We talked about that before the game, that it was real important that we did not come out flat,” she said.

McNeely and Hampton have taken over the ballhandling role that was Kari Schenk’s duty the previous four years, and Waddell likes the work of both players.

“I think she (McNeely) has matured a little bit with her decision-making, and that does come from experience, too, over the years. She’s the kind of player who likes to get all her teammates involved. She knows her job, when she’s got the ball, is to get her teammates involved by distributing the ball and protecting the basketball, too,” said Waddell.

She considers McNeely both point guard and shooting guard, with Hampton also able to play both positions, but stresses that McNeely is in charge of the offense when she’s on the floor.

“I’m very confident with both of them. When Kristen’s not in the game,I tell Hillary to take over that duty. Both of them are pretty good decision-makers,” said Waddell.

South (1-6), which was led by Brittney Gaddy’s 17 points and 12 rebounds, hung fairly close in the first half, trailing only 29-17 at intermission. West then pulled away to lead by 22 late in the contest.

“I told the kids that we could not turn the ball over, that we had to take care of the ball. So we went out and turned the ball over,” said South coach James Greene.

The Raiders had 41 turnovers to West’s 28.

“West has got a very good press. They’ve got a relentless defense, and they’ve got relentless kids,” he added. “We’re just going to have to get better dealing with the press. We’re going to see a press from everybody.”

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NOTES: West was 24-for-70 (34.3 percent) on field goals and 8-for-19 on free throws, while South went 14-for-42 (33.3 percent) from the floor and 9-for-16 at the foul line. ... West, led by Hampton and Jenny Sloop with seven rebounds each, beat the Raiders 41-31 on the boards.

WEST ROWAN (56) — Pieper 15, Scearce 6, Wansley 6, McNeely 4, Hampton 12, Sloop 7, Jones, Moore 4, Massey 2, Dowdy, Peebles, Izze.

SOUTH ROWAN (39) — Blackwood 2, Raper 2, Gaddy 17, Khan 2, Yost 6, Efird 2, Willett 6, Miller, Littlejohn 2, Brown, Neely.

West Rowan 18 11 8 19 — 56

South Rowan 6 11 5 17 — 39