Prep Basketball: North Iredell girls 64, West Rowan 33

By David Shaw

dshaw@salisburypost.com

MOUNT ULLA — Don’t shed any tears for Todd McNeely and the West Rowan girls basketball team.

The Falcons simply ran into a buzzsaw Friday night in a 64-33 loss to visiting North Iredell.

“We couldn’t hit a thing,” McNeely said, after West (11-11, 5-5 NPC) had its modest two-game winning streak snapped. “And they were just terrific.”

Actually, they were better than that. The Raiders (15-5, 9-1) remained a game behind front-running Carson by playing a near-perfect game.

“It’s one of the best games we’ve played all season,” winning coach Tami Ramsey gushed. “We shared the ball. We played a good inside-outside game. And we ran the court.”

The guests got the party started in the opening quarter, mounting a 14-2 lead before the game was six-minutes old. Then high-scorer Stacey Lunsford (19 points) hit three consecutive baskets and it was 20-6.

After getting pushed around in the first period, West pushed back in the second. Junior Shay Steele made three straight baskets — a putback, a left-side hook and a rim-to-rim drive for a layup — pulling the Falcons within six points.

“It seemed like we ran plays and took our time in the first half,” said Steele, one of two WR scorers in double figures. “But the further along we went we got impatient and they may have gotten into our heads.”

McNeely felt pleased when the Falcons went to their locker room trailing only 35-22 at halftime. “It was the reverse of what happened when we lost to them up there,” he said while munching a post-game snack. “We didn’t score in the first quarter and shot 1-for-21 in the first half. This time we couldn’t hit anything in the second half.”

He’s right. West converted no field goals in the third quarter and didn’t have a second-half basket until Alison Dutton potted a soft set shot from the left elbow with 2:30 remaining.

“After the first half we felt like we could do anything,” West sophomore Nycieko Dixon said, after providing a team-best 17 points. “Our intensity was up. We had an inside game. We were ready for the second half. But then everybody got frustrated because we weren’t getting calls and they were pushing us around.”

It hardly mattered after North cracked the game open with a 13-0 spurt and surged in front by 33. “We can be a scary team when we want to be,” said Ramsey.

Steele delivered the West perspective. “We’ve just got to work harder,” she said. “That’s all it is.”

NORTH IREDELL (64) — Lunsford 19, B.Johnson 14, Redmond 10, Haneline 8, Fox 5, M.Johnson 4, Robbins 4.

WEST ROWAN (33) — Dixon 17, Steele 10, Sobataka 2, Dutton 2, Landy 2, Barber, Ramsue, Miller, Cross, James, Ball, Hunter.

N. Iredell 20 15 12 17 — 64

W. Rowan 6 16 2 9 — 33