KANNAPOLIS — Donte Minter had a dominating performance as West Rowan’s boys easily downed winless Northwest Cabarrus 73-54 here Friday night.

Minter, the Falcons’ 6-foot-7 junior center, scored 25 points and grabbed 14 rebounds for a double-double. He also led his team in assists with six, stole the ball once and blocked four shots.

“We want the ball to go to No. 55 (Minter),” said coach Mike Gurley of West. “I’ve found out with Donte that eight out of 10 times it’s in his hands, good things are going to happen.”

Minter scored 10 of his points in the opening quarter, which saw the Falcons surge to a 20-0 lead by the 2:54 mark.

“Twenty-to-nothing’s hard to beat,” said Gurley. “I feel good about what we did tonight. That shows that we’re headed in the right direction. We’re trying to play a complete game.”

Minter had six of those first 20 points, while Junior Hairston and Timmy Mauldin each scored four. Phillip Williams, Horatio Everhart and T.J. Gaither each had one basket with Gaither’s shot pushing the lead to 20-0.

Northwest finally got on the scoreboard on a basket by Jacob Swinton with 2:06 left in the opening period. The Trojans trailed 25-6 at the end of the quarter.

West’s biggest lead of 34-6 came early in the second quarter, but Gurley made no attempt to run up the score. He substituted freely, and Northwest stayed within about 20 points most of the rest of the contest.

“I told them the score was irrelevant, ‘Let’s see if we can put minutes together.’ We were trying to involve everyone. I thought everyone played hard who was in there.”

Mauldin was West’s No. 2 scorer with 10 points, which included his first career slam dunk after a steal during the Falcons’ 20-0 run.

Forwards Hairston and Vicco Barringer and guard Everhart each scored eight points. Seven other Falcons scored at least one point.

West, which bounced back from a 62-60 last-second loss to South Rowan on Wednesday night, improved to 5-1 overall and 3-0 in the 3A South Piedmont Conference.

“I told the guys earlier in the week after the South game, I used a bad phrase, a negative phrase and I told them they should have fought me for it: I said, ‘We’re not good enough to depend on luck to win games.’ I should have never said ‘not good enough.’ This bunch is good enough to win basketball games,” said Gurley. “What we’re trying to do right now is become more experienced to win basketball games. If we had more experience under our belt, maybe we handle that pressure South Rowan put on us Wednesday night.

West led South by 14 points in the third quarter and by 10 starting the fourth quarter, but the Raiders staged a late rally to pull off an upset.

Northwest, which dropped to 0-7 overall and 0-4 in the SPC, was led by A.J. Hendry’s 15 points, seven steals, five rebounds and three assists. Swinton added 10 points, and Randy Johnson pulled down seven rebounds.

Gurley had praise for coach Greg McKenzie’s young Northwest team, despite its winless start.

“Greg McKenzie’s team’s never going to look winless. They play hard. It’s going to be hard to deal with them next time, because Greg will figure a way to be successful,” said the West coach.

NOTES: West went 26-for-53 (49.1 percent) on field goals and added 18-for-37 at the foul line. The Trojans were 21-for-67 (31.3 percent) from the floor and 7-for-12 on free throws. ... West had 26 turnovers, including 17 in the second half, while the Trojans lost the ball 20 times. ... West visits A.L. Brown in SPC action on Tuesday.

WEST ROWAN (73) — Hairston 8, P. Williams 2, Minter 25, Everhart 8, Mauldin 10, J. Williams, Gaither 3, Goodnight, Avery 4, Barringer 8, Diggs 2, Trosper 1, Pritchard 1, Johnson 1.

NORTHWEST CABARRUS (54) — Andrews 2, Maxwell, Swinton 10, Lyerly 7, Burgess 2, Patterson 1, Caldwell 6, Johnson 6, Price 2, Hendry 15, Nance 3.

West Rowan 25 23 16 9 — 73

NW Cabarrus 6 21 13 14 — 54