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The Rowan County girls basketball player of the year?
It’s going to be someone young.
You can make a good case for any of Rowan County’s three amazing kids — Salisbury freshman guard Shayla Fields, West sophomore guard Hillary Hampton or East sophomore forward Rich.
Fields set a Rowan record this season for most points averaged by a freshman, scoring 19.5 ppg.
Jackie Wood, who began her career at North Rowan and later played at South Rowan, scored more points than Fields during her freshman year (494 to 467), but also had more games to work with. Wood averaged 16.5 ppg her first year.
Fields’ season was the fourth most prolific in Hornet history.
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Hampton completed her second season on Wednesday and is already West’s No. 8 all-time scorer with 824 points. Hillary has a great shot at Wendy Hampton’s school record of 1,764.
Hampton scored 521 points in 2001-02, only the fourth time a Falcon has reached the 500-point plateau in a season.
Hampton’s 20.8 ppg was the third-best average posted by a Falcon.
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Rich’s season, of course, still has a ways to go. She’ll be in the 3A state playoffs and has one or two more games left in the NPC Tournament.
With 717 career points, Rich is already 16th on East’s all-time list. She passed Pfeiffer Falcon Brooke Misenheimer with her 20-point outing on Tuesday against Mooresville.
Rich has scored 480 points this season and will almost certainly become the second Mustang to hit 500 in a single campaign.
The only time it’s been done previously was by Rowan County Hall of Famer Cristy Earnhardt, who scored 545 in 1975.
Rich is averaging 20.0 ppg, so she also has a shot at Earnhardt’s single-season school record of 20.2.
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It took some convincing before the Mustangs believed their head coach.
Following East Rowan’s season-ending defeat to Mooresville in the first round of the North Piedmont Conference Tournament, rookie head coach Derek Kurnitsky marveled at his amazing turnaround.
As an assistant coach at Davie County, he enjoyed 20-win seasons with regularity. In his first year at East Rowan, his team lost 22 games.
“One of the kids said, ‘What did you enjoy more?’ and I said this year,”Kurnitsky said. “I’m a head coach,I’m running my own system. This was more enjoyable. Even though we had 20 losses, we were in a lot of games. The program’s headed in the right direction.”
There’s reason for hope despite ending the year on a 20-game skid. East lost only two seniors —Matt Belk and Adam Shepherd —and showed off an improving frontcourt of “sophomore bookends,”as Kurnitsky called them, in Jason Cauble and Kenny Abel.
Junior guard Derek Talbert ended the year with a 7.2 scoring average, topped by freshman Eric Taylor’s 7.7. Juniors Brent Whitley (6.3) and Caleb Miller (7.1) also shined at different times.
“Everybody we played this year was seniors — except for us,”Kurnitsky said of the NPC competition. “Hey, we’ve got everybody coming back, we should be the team to beat next year, along with West, so I’m excited.”
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MAGGIE MAGIC:When East’s Maggie Rich scored 35 points against Statesville, it was the most points scored in a game by an East girl since 1960.
Amazingly enough, the two highest-scoring games by an East girl both happened that season. Linda McNair scored 37 against Monroe and Peggy Cozart scored 36 against Children’s Home.
One more thing about Rich’s amazing night. She didn’t score in the first seven minutes of the game.
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James House got the news from assistant coach David Berrier following Friday night’s regular-season finale.
“Fifty percent,”Berrier reported happily to the grinning House, who had helped North to a 49-38 victory over East Davidson.
House’s 13-point effort came not on 50-percent shooting from the floor. No, the senior hit 5 of 9 two-pointers for a solid 56-percent showing. What had House smiling was his 3-for-6 night from the free-throw line.
In a move that smacked of desperation, House shot his free throws against East Davidson from the far right side of the line instead of the normal centered position. On all three trips to the stripe, he made his first and missed the second.
“I had to change something,”the senior said. “It started working for me.”
Compared to some of House’s previous shooting nights, 50 percent is a start.
“Let’s see …” said Berrier with a laugh as he started flipping through past games in the scorebook.
After hearing some of his 0-fers and 1-fers read aloud, House quickly begged his coach to stop. Berrier complied — after another turn of the page or two.
House’s innovative style was short-lived, though. He hit 2 of 4 free throws in Tuesday’s win against Ledford from the center of the foul circle.
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Davie War Eagle coach Jim Young stood beside the referee during the first round of the Central Piedmont Conference Tournament and said, “That’s a moving screen!”
Wait a minute. Did that actually come out of the mouth of Jim Young? The man whose teams are always accused of moving screens to get his deadeye 3-point shooters open?
“Their screens are illegal,” Young said with a sly grin when questioned after his team’s 117-77 win over South Iredell. “All of ours are legal.”
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