Prep Basketball: Statesville boys 77, South Rowan 59

By David Shaw

dshaw@salisburypost.com

LANDIS — South Rowan boys coach John Davis felt like six of the seven dwarfs Wednesday night — everyone but Happy.

The Raiders longtime mentor found little to applaud after his team wrapped up the NPC regular season with a 77-59 loss to visiting Statesville.

“I thought we played terrible,” Davis said after South was home-schooled by the conference champion Greyhounds. “As far as basketball IQ, I don’t think we made good decisions. At times we rushed things. We let Statesville dictate the pace and take us out of what we wanted to do.”

Despite suffering its second straight loss, South (7-16, 5-7) will enter the conference tournament as a fourth seed and host fifth-place finisher North Iredell on Monday night.

“It would have been nice to win these last two games,” senior guard Qua Neal said after leading South with 19 points. “Now we’ve just got to go out and make a statement. We’ve got to play our style of ball and play defense.”

They did neither against Statesville (17-3, 11-1). The guests won their 11th consecutive league game by turning the match into a track meet.

“This should be a momentum builder for us,” said winning coach Sonny Schofield. “We’ll see. Our shot selection was good and our shots were on tonight. I’m pleased with that.”

South likely peaked in the opening four minutes, when it built a 12-9 lead. Statesville responded with an 11-0 run and never looked back. By halftime the Hounds led by 12 points and by later by as much as 62-42 when Jaquan Warren sank a floater with 19 seconds to play in the third quarter.

“It was like the tide coming in,” Davis said. “The game just gradually got away from us, a little bit at a time. But that’s a senior bunch against us, a young bunch.”

Statesville was paced by Nick Schofield’s 26 points and Warren’s 18. Teammate Tyrone Lowery hit back-to-back 3-pointers during a pivotal second-period stretch.

“We just stopped playing ‘D’ and they got wide-open looks,” said Neal. “On offense, we weren’t running any of our plays. We were just running up and down the court, doing anything. That’s not our style.”

South received 12 points from junior Josh Medlin, including a 3-ball in the final quarter. Now the Raiders hope to give Davis something to smile about this postseason.

“We’ve got to be more assertive and make better decisions,” he said. “But first we’ve got to take care of business on Monday.”

STATESVILLE (77) — Schofield 26, Warren 18, Gaither 11, Willis 7, Lowery 6, Williams 3, Knox 2, Borders 2, Savoy 2.

SOUTH ROWAN (59) — Neal 19, Medlin 12, Spry 7, Allen 7, Lambert 7, Washington 5, Tyler 2, Glenn, Parker, Goodman, Sherrill, Buchanan.

Statesville 20 18 24 15 — 77

S. Rowan 14 12 18 15 — 59