KANNAPOLIS — Not exactly a routine week for the South Rowan boys basketball team.
Let’s see, now. There was a 39-point spanking at the hands of R.J. Reynolds on Tuesday, and then there was just a slight turnaround on Thursday night — a 104-67 romp at Northwest Cabarrus.
“I had a bad performance against Reynolds, we all did,” said South senior Doug Daugherty, who scored a season-low six points against the mighty Demons and 35 against Northwest. “That made us fired up. Everybody had something to prove tonight.”
But South coach John Davis wasn’t sure his team was all that gung-ho about a non-league game tossed into the middle of 4A Central Piedmont Conference play. That’s why Davis bribed his team. He promised a rare day off (today) if his guys could summon up enough gusto to take care of business against the Trojans.
“In the locker room I didn’t see the intensity I wanted, but when I mentioned a day off that got their attention,” said Davis. “That shocked ’em. It was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ It was like hooking the paddles up to them.”
“We were gonna keep right on digging for that day off,” grinned Daugherty.
South (9-9) came out with some scary energy against the Trojans (1-15), who had just gotten their first win of the season 48 hours earlier against arch-rival Central Cabarrus.
“We were flat,” sighed Trojan coach Greg McKenzie. “I was like, ‘Guys, I know you’re real happy about Tuesday, but there is a game scheduled for tonight.’ ”
Northwest tried its standard traps and South ran its press-break to perfection for the first 16 minutes. The Raiders made nine of their first 10 shots. They led 21-9 after four and a half minutes. They spurted 27-6 and it was 52-17. After a 36-point second quarter, it was 61-26 and just a question of how ugly it might get and how many records would fall.
The same thing kept right on happening. South guards Tore’ Girty and Nathan Kennedy would draw a swarm of Trojan defenders to the middle of the floor, then kick to a wide-open Daugherty toeing the 3-point line in the right corner. Daugherty poured in eight 3-pointers. He had an astonishing five of those 3s in a 19-point second quarter onslaught. He could do no wrong. He could’ve beaten Ben-Hur in a chariot race.
“It just happened,” Daugherty said modestly. “Girty and Kennedy did a great job of beating the press and getting me the ball and Rucker and Torrence rebounded and got the break going.”
Daugherty’s teammates did such a bang-up job of finding him, that at the half, Duke’s “Cameron Crazies” could have chanted, “Doug-ie’s win-ning.” Daugherty had outscored the Trojans 27-26 by himself.
Whenever Daugherty missed (he finished 13-for-27 from the field), bookends Maurice Torrence and Marcus Rucker, who combined for 40 points and 26 rebounds, attacked the offensive board like a pair of grizzlies going after a honeycomb.
“Twenty-one (Daugherty) can shoot it,” said McKenzie. “But even more than him it was those two kids inside who killed us. They have long arms, they jumped quick and they were everywhere.”
“It was total team effort. I think we showed something in that first half,” smiled Davis. “We jumped on ’em and kept it up.”
After halftime, the only real suspense concerned whether or not Daugherty would break the school scoring mark of 40 set by Damien Argrett last season against Northwest. He settled for tying the third best night in South history (James Allen had 35 in 1976, while Larry Lentz had 37 in 1988), scoring eight points in the third quarter and none in the fourth.
It has to be tempting for Davis to just let Daugherty keep blasting away, but he resisted. Daugherty sat down for the last three minutes of the third quarter and the last six minutes of the game. It was a class move. South was already ahead by 48 points at 83-35 when Davis pulled his main men. There was no point in rubbing it in.
“Doug was on. Lord knows how many he could have got if he’d stayed in there,” said Davis. “But let’s save some for when we need them.”
NOTES:South cracked 100 points with 1:20 left on a three-point play by Matt Biles. ... A dozen Raiders scored as South put up its highest one-game point total since 1976 when the Raiders beat South Iredell 108-86. ... Davis called Girty’s all-round game — “outstanding.” ... McKenzie expects his team to bounce back strong tonight against Mount Pleasant.
SOUTHROWAN (104) — Daugherty 35, Torrence 23, Rucker 17, Girty 11, Biles 3, Diggs 3, Hornbeak 3, Kennedy 2, J. Patterson 2, Childers 2, Mack 2, Propst 1, Willett.
NWCABARRUS (67)— Johnson 19, Burgess 13, Hendry 12, Lyerly 6, M. Patterson 5, Andrews 4, Price 3, Nance 2, Caldwell 2, Davidson 1.
South Rowan 25 36 25 18 — 104
NWCabarrus 11 15 16 25 — 67
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