BY MIKE LONDON
SALISBURY POST

LANDIS — It was a boys basketball game absolutely beaten over the head with an ugly stick.

Sixty-three fouls were whistled; 95 free throws were launched; 43 free throws misfired and 54 turnovers were bounced off the walls.

Yet, South Rowan coach John Davis was neither disgusted nor discouraged by his team’s physical 92-76 victory over winless Northwest Cabarrus.

“We don’t discriminate between wins and ugly wins,” said Davis. “Our kids aren’t pleased with tonight’s performance, but wins are wins, and we’ll take all we can get.”

Good point. South (5-4) won just seven times all of last season — Davis’ first as head coach — so no one in Landis has started taking success for granted. And five wins before Christmas, two wins in two days (South beat Mooresville Tuesday) and a three-game winning streak is nothing to sneeze at.

“We’re on a pretty good roll right now,” admitted Davis.

For a couple of quarters last night, though, Davis would have liked to have rolled his starting five right into the Atlantic Ocean — without benefit of life jackets or shark repellent.

South started the game with all the intensity of Bingo Night and a feisty Northwest team, which plays much harder than anyone would expect an oh-fer team to play, took advantage.

“You could see it in my kid’s eyes,” said Davis. “They weren’t ready to play.

“We were looking ahead and behind,” agreed South’s Maurice Torrence, who scored 20 points and had 10 rebounds — every bit of it in the middle two quarters. “After we beat West (Rowan), everyone in school was like, ‘Wow, what’s going on with you guys?’ Then we beat (previously unbeaten) Mooresville. We were thinking about all that. And this Friday, we have a big game coming up with North (Rowan). None of us played as hard as we could tonight.”

After seven minutes, South was down 13-9 to a team that West had pounced on 20-0 and the burly Davis looked like he was contemplating hurling the scorer’s table all the way to Bear Poplar.

But then South’s first-teamers, duly chastised by an unexpected opportunity to watch the reserves perform for several minutes, crept back on the floor and scored nine straight points (six on two Scott Beck 3s) for an 18-13 lead at the end of the quarter.

That spurt of concentration didn’t last long, however, and the game began to see-saw much to the dismay of Davis and the delight of Trojan coach Greg McKenzie. It’s been a tough year for McKenzie, whose team is far different (after some personnel defections) than the one he thought he’d have. Last season, he brought the Trojans home 21-9. Right now, they’re 0-8. But he sees light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not necessarily an oncoming train.

“We’re getting closer,” he said. “We’ve got a great group of kids and they haven’t quit.”

Just playing hard kept Northwest in this one. South led 55-49 with three minutes left in the third quarter. But then came an impressive “two-minute drill” in which the Raiders drilled every shot. Torrence scored in the lane; Tore’ Girty hit back-to-back leaners; Ricky Childers set up Doug Daugherty for a swishing 3-pointer and Daugherty followed with a transition layup. Suddenly, South led 66-51.

“I looked up at the scoreboard and turned to my assistant and asked him, ‘Can that score be right?’ ” groaned McKenzie. “It happened so fast. That spurt was the difference. Other than that one stretch, it was even.”

Davis agreed. “We played two minutes of good basketball,” he said. “But only two.”

South rode home with little sweat, leading by as many as 20 at 84-64, before settling for the 16-point win. South’s scoring lined up in a neat row with Torrence getting help from Daugherty (19), Beck (18) and Girty (17). In between throwing his body on the floor like the poor man’s Shane Battier, reserve Trey Hornbeak chipped in with nine points,

The game was a statistical nightmare for South, which turned it over 24 times and missed more free throws (25) than it made (23), but that won’t matter in a week. By then, this will be just another “W” — indistinguishable from the glorious wins over West and Mooresville.

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NOTES: Northwest’s scoring was led by Chris Lyerly, who had the mother of all weird stat nights. Lyerly scored 19, all at the line on 19-for-20 foul shooting. Twice, he made three shots after being fouled on 3-point tries. He was 0-for-4 from the field. ... Ben Burgess added 15 for the Trojans, while A.J. Hendry had 12. ... McKenzie still believes his team can make the state 3A playoffs (the SPC gets five berths) after an 0-4 league start. ... Northwest’s visit last season prompted Raider Damien Argrett’s 40-point outburst that broke the school scoring record. ... South’s Jarrel Mack scored the game’s first two points with his only bucket. ... Torrence fouled out in the third quarter.

NORTHWEST (76) — Andrews 8, Lyerly 19, Burgess 15, Hendry 12, Nance 4, Caldwell 4, Johnson 5, Swinton 2, Maxwell 7..

SOUTHROWAN (92)— Torrence 20, Daugherty 19, Beck 18, Girty 17, Hornbeak 9, Diggs 6, Mack 2, Childers 1, Kennedy, Patterson, Propst, Biles, Willett.

NWCabarrus 13 25 18 20 — 76

South Rowan 18 26 24 24 — 92