LANDIS—Unprecedented, no. Unexpected, perhaps.
Unbelievable?
Yes.
An ordinary Jerrel Mack layup thrilled the South Rowan boys basketball team’s home fans Tuesday night. The shot put the finishing touches on the second-most resounding win over county rival North in series history: 100-61.
“That’s just a good ol’ fashioned butt-kicking,”Cavaliers head coach Kelly Everhart said. “We have a lot of things to work on. We can use football players as an excuse, but we’re not going to do that. These guys are capable of playing, and if I didn’t think so we would have rescheduled this game.”
North lost plenty of superstars from last year’s team and is still waiting on the football squad’s playoff run to dress out a full contingent. Until then, Everhart will play with an inexperienced group that committed 27 turnovers and made just 24 of 49 free throws.
South (2-0) hit 23 of 35 from the charity stripe and also knocked home an impressive 52 percent of its attempts from the field. The big, physical Raiders beat North to the ball for plenty of easy putbacks and turned the ball over only —in what was at times a frenzied tussle —17 times.
“I think we’re going to get better and better as the year goes on,”Raiders head coach John Davis said. “It’s kind of hard to gauge because they don’t have their players.”
South scored just 58 points in its season-opening win against Salisbury last week, so the Raiders weren’t exactly expecting to explode last night. They entered the game with a four-game skid against the Cavs.
“I really didn’t think we’d get to that 100,”said Raider forward Tre Hornbeak, who led all scorers with 21. “Last game we broke 50. We just came in trying to do everything right and it popped up to a hundred.”
South hasn’t ever hit the century mark against North, but the 39-point margin of victory wasn’t the highest. In 1965, South romped to a 98-45 victory.
“We never look at 100 points,”Davis said. “If we win by one we’re just as happy. We look at wins and losses.”
Hornbeak and Andrew Morgan each scored seven points in the first quarter. Quick point guard David Lane harried the Cavs into 12 turnovers in the opening period, and a Morgan 3-pointer from Gerry Propst with the clock winding down gave South a 32-15 lead.
North’s young guns did answer. Junior Tristan Rankin converted a steal and a layup and scored in the lane. A sweet pull-up jumper from Demario Peoples brought the Cavs within 34-28.
Following a Raider timeout, Morgan hit on back-to-back baskets and Zach Overcash, who finished with 10 points, scored in the paint to stretch the lead back to 11.
“We made that one little run in the second quarter and it looked like we had a little spark,”Everhart said.“All of a sudden South came back and I think we glanced up at the scoreboard and realized we were down by double digits and dropped our heads.”
The Raiders led 53-32 at halftime and got six points apiece from Lane, Hornbeak and Overcash in the third quarter to pull away in the eventual free-throw shooting contest.
After the officials called 60 fouls in the girls game, they called 60 personals (34 on South, 26 on North) in the boys contest —and added a tie-breaking technical against the Raiders for good measure.
NORTH ROWAN (61) — Suber 5, Peoples 8, Horton 2, Mulkey 2, Mitchell 12, Rankin 13, McCauley, Pemberton 10, Hawkins 9.
SOUTH ROWAN (100) — Propst 2, Lane 15, Caudle, Morgan 15, Hornbeak 21, Thomas 2, Corriher 8, Biles 2, Barnhardt, Overcash 10, Patterson 8, Keener 5, Robbins, Mack 12.
North Rowan 15 17 11 18 — 61
South Rowan 32 21 22 25 — 100
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Contact Steve Hanf at 704-797-4256 or shanf@salisburypost.com
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