“You don’t see that too often,” the Mustangs’ head coach said. “And I think that’s the first dunk I’ve seen at East Rowan since I’ve been here.”

Forget about first-time occurrences in the mere five years Flynn has walked the East Rowan halls. Friday night’s 89-62 victory over Concord marked the Mustangs’ biggest win ever against their 3A South Piedmont Conference rival. The 89 points landed three shy of the all-time school scoring mark and were the most since a 92-86 overtime win against Kannapolis in 1990.

In four-quarter games, the Mustangs showed East fans something they haven’t seen since the 1976-77 season, when Gilbert Sprinkle’s team set the school record in a 91-83 win over East Iredell.

“We have a bunch of guys who can shoot the ball and two or three of them had a breakout night,” Flynn said. “Hopefully we can build on that from here.”

A struggling East team, at 3-11 overall and 2-5 in the SPC, had been waiting for this offensive outburst. On three occasions this season the Mustangs failed to score 89 points combined in consecutive games.

“We weren’t expecting that,” said junior guard Justin Miller.

“We were getting easy baskets,” added teammate Adam Cornelius, who matched Miller’s team-high 20 points. “We picked up the pace from what we’ve been doing. It was fun.”

And everybody joined in. Taylor Weber scored 15 points and Mark Misenheimer got hot in the fourth quarter, scoring eight of his 11 points on a layup and two quick 3s.

Then there was Cedric Gill, the 6-foot-4 junior who slammed home two of his 16 points. The dunk thrilled the crowd and gave the Mustangs their first 20-point lead of the night, 78-58 with 4:10 remaining.

“We came out looking to push the ball a little more than we’ve been,” Flynn said. “We hit the shots we hadn’t been hitting and that gave us confidence to do the other things we hadn’t been doing.”

Neither team mustered any kind of offense in the first half. A total of 26 fouls were called and 25 free throws attempted, and the 34-31 halftime score looked like another ordinary night.

“They called it pretty tight, but it usually benefits us when they do that,” Flynn said. “But there wasn’t much rhythm to the game in the first half.”

Then some extraordinary doings heated up in the third quarter. Cornelius hit a 3-pointer, Weber drove for a layup, Gill scored off the glass and Miller connected on a fast break.

Concord (1-9, 1-6) was less than impressed. Quick guard Marcus Cooke took over, scoring 11 points in the quarter. The Spiders shot 9-for-12 (75 percent) in the third, and their nine turnovers were the only difference in East’s 60-52 lead after three quarters.

The Spiders cooled considerably in the fourth quarter, hitting only 2-of-25 field goal attempts. East stayed hot, though, and 3-pointers from Misenheimer and Cornelius broke it open. Miller, in his best game back since injuring his hand, won the free-throw shooting contest with a perfect 8-for-8 effort to seal the win.

“Justin’s had a couple of good shooting games,” Flynn said. “It’s almost like it (the injury) didn’t even happen.”

One thing didn’t happen for Concord — Foster Parker’s team didn’t show up.

“We just didn’t have any intensity or heart to play tonight,” the Spider head coach said. “East outhustled us in every aspect and deserved to win by as much as they did with the way we played.”

CONCORD (62) — M. Cooke 30, Wilson 5, A. Cooke 2, Thrasher 5, Smith 9, Peay, Green, Cunningham, Black 4, Howard 4, Cummings 3.

EAST ROWAN (89) — Ledbetter 1, Martinez, Sides, Cornelius 20, Miller 20, Weber 15, Gill 16, Misenheimer 11, Hollifield 2, Shepherd 2, Rusher 2.

Concord 13 18 21 10 — 62