That’s because East’s star guard, senior Nicole Loggins, took a hard fall when she was intentionally fouled on a drive to the basket by Harding’s Raven Johnson with 25 seconds to play.

Johnson knocked Loggins into the padded wall under the basket. The East star landed awkwardly and lay on the floor in pain before being helped up.

“She hit her hipbone and her wrist a little bit,” said Bingham. “Hopefully, she’s going to be all right. We’ll get her checked out and make sure.”

Loggins, the county’s player of the year last season, is averaging 15.4 points for the season. She’s now scored 1,039 career points to rank third on East’s all-time list.

Bingham played reserves about 12 minutes in the second half, but two of them, Sarah Ivey and Michelle Haynes, fouled out in the closing minutes. That’s why point guard Brooke Misenheimer and Loggins were in the game down the stretch.

Misenheimer is the 25th Mustang girl to reach the 500-point plateau.

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SEEKING BALANCE: East boys coach Mark Flynn knows he has dangerous 3-point shooters like Justin Miller, Adam Cornelius and Taylor Weber, but he wants his Mustangs to have an inside game to go with the outside shooting.

“We’ve been relying, especially the last two games (losses to West Rowan on Tuesday and South Stanly in overtime on Thursday), way too much on the 3. We’ve got to do something. We’re working on getting some shots down towards the basket,” said Flynn, who team is off to 1-6 start, 1-3 in the SPC.

After Harding built up a 51-25 lead after three quarters in its 70-38 SPC win on Friday, Flynn played reserves a lot in the second half. However, he kept 6-4 center Cedric Gill in the game.

“That’s why I kept Cedric in late to get him some shots down in the low post. We got a few there towards the end of the game,” said Flynn.

Gill, averaging 10.6 points in his first varsity season, scored a career-high 19 points. He went 6-for-10 on field goals and 7-for-11 at the foul line. Gill also grabbed seven rebounds and blocked four shots.

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TOUGH SCHEDULE: East’s three conference losses have been to defending champion West Rowan (69-50), Harding and Central Cabarrus (72-45).

“In my opinion, we’ve played the best three teams already,” pointed out Flynn. “Hopefully, it will get a little bit easier for us. We are going to have to play a lot better than we’ve played the last two nights, or we’re going to be in trouble. I think we’re going to bounce back. I think we’ve got some guys in there with a lot of character. I think they’ll come back strong.”

The Salisbury-Davie County basketball game had a definite Rowan County flavor Friday night.

First, there was Davie’s leading scorer Duane Phillips, who grew up in the North Rowan area. As talented as North is, one can imagine what the Cavs would be like with Phillips, who averages 27 points per game.

Phillips said he might not have played for North. He may have shot that deadly jumper for Drew Mathews and Salisbury instead.

“I might have transferred to Salisbury,” he said. “My mother graduated from there and that’s where she would’ve wanted me to go.”

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SPENCERTOMOCKSVILLE: Davie’s Jonathan Britton actually played football for North earlier this year. Now, he’s a War Eagle.

“I came up to stay with my grandma and help out,” said Britton. “And I get to play with my cousin, Duane.”

Make that two cousins. Davie guard Marcus Lassiter is also related to Britton.

Davie coach Jim Young is extremely pleased with the progress of Britton. The third-year Davie coach has a rigid system for players to learn.

“Jonathan has done remarkably well,” Young said. “Our system takes time to learn and he didn’t get frustrated.”

Britton said he still keeps up with North Rowan. His best friend, Dre Byrd, talks with Britton almost daily.

“He’s wanting to play against us in the Christmas Tournament,” said Britton with a grin.

Does Young need a scouting report on the Cavs from Britton.

“Without even seeing North, I know they’re going to jump and they’re going to run, he said.

Scooter Sherrill became Rowan County’s all-time boys scoring leader when he poured in 22 points at Harding on Dec. 3 in West Rowan’s overtime victory.

The record had been held by Salisbury’s Bobby Phillips, who scored 1,849 points in a career that ended in 1994. Phillips went on to star at Western Carolina University.

After scoring 94 points in three scintillating games this past week, Sherrill stands at 1,946 points. The most likely ETA for Sherrill’s 2,000th point is Concord’s Rimer Gym on Dec. 17. If not there, it will come in West’s home game with South Rowan on the 20th.

Sherrill has scored in double figures in 68 straight games. The last time he was held below 10 points was by Maiden in the 2A Western Regional semifinals in 1997 when he was a freshman. Sherrill scored seven points in that game. Sherrill has never scored fewer than 12 points in any game since West moved up to the 3A ranks prior to his sophomore year.