West Rowan broke loose in the second half against an inexperienced Salisbury boys basketball team and took a 69-44 victory in the first round of the Sam Moir Christmas Classic on Wednesday.
Coach Mike Gurley’s third-seeded Falcons, 8-3 for the season, earned a semifinal matchup with No. 2 Davie County (8-1) at 4:30 p.m. today at Catawba College’s Goodman Gymnasium.
Sixth-seeded Salisbury (2-5) met No. 4 South Rowan(6-6) in a losers bracket game this afternoon.
West, which plays four sophomores a great deal, still had more experience than did Salisbury, which lost four players, including senior leaders Ken Drye and Markeice Daugherty, to academic ineligibility. Coach Drew Mathews moved five players up from the jayvee and freshman squads to replace Drye, Daugherty, Jerome Allison and Greg Edwards.
Salisbury still hung close throughout the first half, and the Hornets were down by five twice early in the second half, the last time at 32-27.
“I think, in the first half and the beginning of the third quarter, my young guys came out and executed and we had a chance to stay in the game,” said Mathews.
West, led by 6-foot-7 center Donte Minter, went on a 14-0 run to break the game open.Minter had 11 of those points.
“Once we lost our focus and got out of the execution of running plays, they just took over the game,” said Mathews.
Minter went on to score 13 of his game-high 19 points in that third quarter, and the Falcons outscored the Hornets 20-11. West went on to lead by 26 in the final period.
“We did a good job in spurts,” said West’s Gurley. “I’m not being derogatory toward my team. I thought in spurts we played really well and did some good things. We are going to have to play better to advance further in this tournament when we play a quality team like Davie tomorrow.”
Minter was joined in double figures by Timmy Mauldin and Junior Hairston, who scored 12 and 11, respectively. Mauldin’s nine first-half points led the Falcons to their 30-22 halftime lead.
Then Randall Jones, Salisbury’s scoring leader with 17, scored five points early in the second half, and the Hornets pulled close.
Gurley, with his team leading by only five, said of that point in the contest, “I was thinking, ‘I wish I had Jones.’ Randall Jones is a quality basketball player. I felt like, coming into the second half, we would have had a comfortable lead if we had now allowed Randall to get two wide-open looks, which he just buried.”
Jones made three 3-pointers, one coming late in the first half and another at the beginning of the third period.
“We’re going to get a little bit of that tomorrow. We’ve got the (Sean) Stevens kid from Davie,” said Gurley.
Stevens, a guard smaller than his listed 5-9, has topped 38 points three times already this season.
“I’m sure that they’re going to be very fundamental in the execution of what he (coach Jim Young) wants to run,” said Gurley of the War Eagles.
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NOTES: West was 23-for-68 (33.8 percent) on field goals and 22-for-31 at the foul line. Salisbury made 19 of 54 field goal attempts (35.2 percent) and was 3-for-4 at the free throw stripe. ... Two sophomores led West to a 48-26 advantage on the boards. Starter Hairston had a game-high 11 rebounds, while reserve Jason Williams pulled down seven. ... Taylor Knauf, one of three Salisbury seniors in the game, had eight rebounds to pace the Hornets. ... Senior point guard Boo Blount of Salisbury missed his fifth straight game with an injury. ... West junior guard Horatio Everhart, one of the Falcons’ most experienced players, sat out the contest. “He had not lived up to the expectations that his teammates have lived up to. Therefore, he did not dress,” said Gurley. “He will dress tomorrow after we deal with it.”
WEST ROWAN (69) — P. Williams 4, Hairston 11, Minter 19, Gaither 4, Mauldin 12, Barringer 8, J. Williams 1, Goodnight 2, Diggs 1, Pritchard 4, Trosper 3.
SALISBURY (44)— Mears 4, Conners 3, Knauf 6, Geter 2, Jones 17, Campbell, Roten 4, Boyd 6, Davis, Bost 2, Stevenson.
West Rowan 16 14 20 19 — 69 Salisbury 11 11 11 11 — 44
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