East Rowan’s girls cruised past Davie County 61-49 on Friday night, guaranteeing a new Sam Moir Christmas Classic champion.
Defending champ Davie had no correct answers for East sophomore forward Maggie Rich, who scored 31 points — one fewer than her career high. Rich pushed the top-seeded Mustangs (9-0) in today’s 5:45 championship game against third-seeded South Rowan (7-4).
“Rich is awesome,” declared Davie coach Carol Cozart, seconding the opinion of a few thousand impressed on-lookers at Goodman Gymnasium. “We had seen Rich and we knew all about her, but knowing and containing weren’t the same thing.”
After Davie’s first on-court meeting with Rich, Cozart piled on a saggy Maggie bandwagon already filled with the rest of the area’s coaches. Rich is averaging 21.6 ppg and has topped 20 points six times.
East, off to its best start since it won its first 10 in 1986-87, led wire to wire. Rich scored East’s first nine, had 13 by the end of the first quarter and forced the cold-as-ice War Eagles to play an ineffective game of catch-up the rest of the night.
“We clicked,” said Rich, a two-word statement which summed things up as efficiently as one of her jumpers from the baseline.
East coach Randy Bingham had done a nice job of scouting the fourth-seeded War Eagles (5-5), who had dissected Salisbury like a laboratory frog in Thursday’s first round.
“I thought Davie looked a little sluggish,” said Bingham. “We thought we could beat them in transition and that was pretty much the plan.”
The Mustangs don’t have breathtaking speed, but there’s no question they ran right by the surprised War Eagles.
When Davie missed long jumpers over East’s 1-2-2 zone, they were generally boarded by Jordan Huffman and Michelle Haynes. The big girls put the ball in the hands of guard Tiffany Ingold, who in turn, zipped the ball to Rich or Christal MacLamroc for uncontested buckets.
“We thought we could play at a pretty good pace,” sighed Cozart. “But East showed us a whole different one. That’s one tough team.”
As usual, Bingham went almost exclusively with his five starters, but they never stopped sprinting.
“I could see the agony on their faces at times,” Bingham said. “It’s hot in here. I’ve tried it. I can’t run up and down this floor three times.”
Fortunately, his team could.
Davie is too good a team not to make a comeback attempt and did put spurts together.
East was cruising 41-25 in the third quarter when Davie made its strongest move. Walker hit a 3 while being fouled and Dawn Singleton got a stickback on Walker’s missed free throw. That made it a five-point trip and the Mustang lead was suddenly sliced to 41-33 with 1:41 left in the third.
But Rich’s scoring, Ingold’s defense and eight points in a flurry by Huffman turned the War Eagles back.
“It seemed like Huffman just got real strong with the ball every time Davie tried to make a run at us,” said Bingham.
“I had played real bad in the first half and I knew I had to step up even though I was a little bit tired,” said Huffman, who finished with 13 points.
Davie crept as close as 47-40 on an Allison Schafer 3-pointer with 6:02 left in the game, but East responded with transition buckets by MacLamroc and Rich, and it was over.
“We played pretty good defense and when you do that you usually win,” said Rich. “And we never let up. We knew Davie wouldn’t stop, so we couldn’t stop, either.”
The result of the East feast is that the defending champs are in today’s 2:15 third-place game against second-seeded West Rowan (8-2).
“We tried hard and we had our chances to get back into it,” said Cozart. “We just never could contain Rich long enough.”
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NOTES:Davie’s Singleton continued to rebound from an early-season slump with 14 points. Cozart said the junior post is “back on track.” ... Ingold had about as good a game as you can have without scoring. Lots of assists, not many turnovers, a blocked shot that led to a Rich hoop and some great decisions on the break. “Tiffany might have had the best game of anyone out there,” said Bingham. ... Only four Mustangs scored. ... East won at home against South 48-47 recently, while West and Davie haven’t played this year. ... East’s most recent Moir title was in 1998.
DAVIE COUNTY (49) — Singleton 14, Walker 12, Schafer 11, A. Williams 7, S.Williams 5, McDaniel, Merlau, Kahrs,
EAST ROWAN (61) — Rich 31, Huffman 13, MacLamroc 9, Haynes 8, Ingold, Kluttz, Wood.
Davie County 8 9 20 12 — 49
East Rowan 18 9 18 16 — 61
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