UNIONVILLE — Piedmont’s deliberate offense may have been the biggest factor in a dismal showing by the East Rowan boys basketball team here Tuesday night.
“Piedmont had a pretty good game plan. They knew what we were going to do. They slowed us down,” said coach Mark Flynn of East after the Mustangs fell 55-40 in a 3A South Piedmont Conference game.
East, 5-11 overall and 3-7 in the SPC, had defeated Piedmont (7-9, 6-4) 69-59 in double overtime at East in December.
East played defense 30 to 45 seconds on practically every Piedmont possession. When the Mustangs finally got the ball, the shots wouldn’t fall. The Mustangs went 15-for-54 (27.8 percent) from the floor.
“We had no intensity tonight. I’m not sure why. They just beat us at both ends of the floor tonight,” said Flynn.
It was East’s fourth straight loss, but the Mustangs had played well in two of those games, looses to Sun Valley and Central Cabarrus.
“We’ve got a lot of seniors. We can’t afford to have lulls like this late in the season. We’ve got a real tough rest of the week coming up. We’ve got to somehow shake this one off and get our intensity back,” said the East coach.
East hosts North Rowan in a non-conference game tonight, then will be at home against SPC leader West Rowan on Friday.
Defensively, Piedmont’s 6-foot-6 center Tony Baker and forward Kenneth Christian gave the Mustangs the most trouble, combining for 32 points. Christian made short jumpers consistently in the first half and finished with 15 points plus rebounds. Baker dominated in the second half and wound up with a game-high 17 points plus 10 rebounds and five blocked shots.
“We didn’t do too good a job defending their forwards and centers tonight,” said Flynn.
“This is a tough place to play, but we didn’t play very hard tonight. That shouldn’t be happening. We have to figure out what’s wrong and go from there,” he added.
East’s scoring was led by guard Adam Cornelius and forward Taylor Weber with 12 points apiece. Weber also had seven rebounds.
NOTES: Piedmont, with Baker and Christian scoring consistently inside, went 19-for-40 (47.5 percent) on field goals. .. Baker and Christian led Piedmont to a 32-25 advantage on the boards. ... The slow pace of the contest kept turnovers to a minimum. East lost the ball 10 times to Piedmont’s 12.
EAST ROWAN (40) — Weber 12, Brady 2, Misenheimer 2, Cornelius 12, Miller 9, Talbert, Belk 3, Butler, Ledbetter, Whitley.
PIEDMONT (55)— Stauffer 6, Christian 15, Baker 17, Gilbert 11, Hunter 3, Cuff 3, Correll, Burnette, Baucom.
East Rowan 9 8 8 15 — 40
Piedmont 5 13 16 21 — 55
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