And Friday night’s wild 60-51 West win in its home gym was no exception. From a parking lot that was packed at 6 p.m. to a playing floor that was packed with diving girls by 6:15. It was as rough and entertaining a game as has been played in Rowan this year (including the boys), as officials permitted both teams to bang away to their heart’s content.

It was a game that the 14 people who played in it will likely never forget, even after their own children are playing. Elbows flew, bumps and bruises were traded and words that can’t be repeated at Sunday school were exchanged.

The difference in the end was West senior Kate Goodman, who willed her game to a new level. With college coaches on hand to check her out, she took over, making inspired, athletic plays that had even Scooter Sherrill shaking his head. Goodman always goes hard, but in a game in which everyone competed with white-hot passion, her adrenaline carried her to unexplored heights of controlled fury.

Maybe it was because, while everyone else gets shook up over East-West games, Goodman stays relatively calm.

“My intensity just comes naturally,” said Goodman. “But I came over here from Northwest Cabarrus (as a junior), so the big game for me is when we play Central Cabarrus. But my teammates are always saying, ‘East is our rival. We’ve gotta get East. We’ve gotta get East.’ They’re my friends, so I try to help them get East.”

Early, the whole Falcon team “got East.” West’s press was frantic in the opening minutes, leading to an 8-0 edge before the Mustangs got off a shot. East coach Randy Bingham had to call a timeout a minute into the game in an effort to calm down his shaky troops.

“We got in an early hole,” said Bingham. “We seem to make that a bad habit.”

East’s Brooke Misenheimer made a 3-pointer to get her team on the board at 6:02, but the Falcon avalanche was just starting. By the 3:30 mark it was 17-3 and West looked as if it might win by a hundred.

It was 25-10 by the middle of the second quarter when East’s Emily Rich (12 points, 12 boards) decided she’d had enough and started grabbing every rebound. Behind Rich, East rallied, ripping off a 14-0 in-your-face run right back at the Falcons. Rich’s spinning bank shot made it 28-26 West, as both teams stormed to the locker room, shooting menacing looks at one another.

“Coach Waddell gave us a big ol’ speech at halftime,” said West’s Sara Pieper who went 8-for-11 and was the lone player to shoot consistently amid the mayhem. “Coach got me psyched. The big thing was we had to rebound better.”

Pieper spent the whole second half — when she wasn’t stroking six straight jump shots — high-fiving someone.

“East was up for this, you could see it,” said Pieper. “So we had to get ourselves up too.”

“The thing that separates West from the rest of our league is their intensity night in and night out,” said Bingham. “Tonight, we had it. We played our hearts out. You just wonder why we don’t have that fire every night. If we did ...”

If it did, East would be better than 12-7 overall and 6-5 in the 3A South Piedmont Conference. West (13-4, 8-2) is tied for first in the SPC and hasn’t lost since it wilted under an East rally in the Sam Moir Christmas Classic.

If anything, the second half made the first half seem like a tea party.

West re-established control, but East’s Nicole Loggins (18 points) hit four free throws after a personal foul-technical foul combination, then swooped down the lane for a 3-point play. Then Rich drilled a jumper off the dribble, tying the game at 47-47 with 4:48 remaining.

East then had a couple of layup chances for the lead, but couldn’t convert. If the Mustangs had been able to go in front — just once — they could have spread the floor, run their patented weave and relied on Misenheimer and Loggins to bury free throws down the stretch, as they have done so often.

“But we missed the easy ones inside,” said Bingham. “That’s been our nemesis all season.”

Goodman (19 points, 12 rebounds) was his nemesis down the stretch.

She sailed down the lane with a startling hop-skip-and-jump move from the foul line at 4:08 to put West ahead 49-47. Then Kari Schenk sank a free throw and passed to Kristen McNeely for a layup and a 52-47 lead. Loggins trimmed the lead back to three, but Goodman retaliated with two free throws after a kamikaze assault on the offensive board that sent bodies flying.

It was 56-49 at 2:12 when Misenheimer went airborne in the lane, only to have Goodman rip the ball out of her hands in mid-flight and head the other way.

The clincher came at 1:03 when West, leading 56-51, poured the ball inside to Goodman once more. Lora Williams blocked her shot, but somehow, Goodman yanked the ball back from Williams before she hit the ground, got up another attempt, and drew a foul. She made one free throw for a six-point lead.

Schenk hit Pieper for a layup to make it 59-51 and finally, a fist-pumping Pieper added a free throw for the final margin as the mostly West crowd went crazy.

“That was most exciting for all,” understated Waddell. “You play East and you have to be on top of your game. I thought we were. We had a mentality that just refused to lose.”

EAST ROWAN (51) — Misenheimer 10, Morgan 2, Loggins 18, Rich 12, Williams 7, Roberts 2, Poole.

WEST ROWAN (60) — Goodman 19, Wansley 2, Pieper 17, Schenk 11, Sloop 2, McNeely 7, Scearce 2.

East 10 16 11 14 — 51