With senior Thad Pryor scoring 25 points and claiming 20 rebounds, Salisbury outmuscled depleted South Rowan 76-64 to advance to a semifinal meeting with top-seeded Davie County tonight at 7:30 p.m. The game wasn’t as close as the score might indicate. The Hornets led by 22 points with five minutes left before South closed strong.

A few minutes after the 6-foot-4 Pryor and his teammates more than doubled South —57-27— on the backboards, first-year Raider coach John Davis sat slumped in a chair at Goodman Gymnasium, and who could blame him.

The Raiders, 2-8 and losers of five straight, had just been forced to play without both of their starting big men, 6-6 Damien Argrett (14 ppg) and 6-2 Maurice Torrence (8.8 ppg).

Torrence has food poisoning, while Argrett injured his hand and wrist in Monday’s practice.

“It was unbelievable,” said Davis, who won’t know the extent of Argrett’s injuries until X-rays are taken today. “We had three kids get hurt in practice within five minutes. Scott Beck (a smooth-shooting guard) hurt his shoulder and another kid got his nose busted wide open. I finally turned to (assistant coach)Shannon (Jordan) and said, ‘We need to just go home and we need to be really careful driving.’”

Still, fifth-seeded South’s makeshift lineup hung with the No. 4 Hornets (4-5) in the first half, trailing just 36-29 at intermission. Pryor, who started slowly with no points and two fouls in the first quarter, produced nine points in the second, but South reserve guards Tore’ Girty and Marquette Diggs kept answering with short jumpers.

At halftime, though, Salisbury coach Drew Mathews laid down the law to his team, which had nipped the Raiders 72-68 earlier in the season.

“He told us it was time to play,” said Pryor. “He said that nobody had any intensity in the first half. After that, we got it going better.”

Did they ever. Salisbury quickly scored the first 11 points of the second half and never looked back.

“We finally started playing hard in the third quarter,” said Mathews. “The kids got after it in our press.”

And the kid who really turned into a monster at halftime was the mild-mannered Pryor, who amassed 15 putback points in the third quarter alone.

“The number of offensive rebounds we got, you can count on one hand,” groaned Davis. “The number that Salisbury got, it would take a small army to count. It was pretty much shoot, shoot, shoot until you make it.”

And sometimes there were four — or even five — “shoots.”

“Pryor stepped up,” said Mathews. “We’ve told Thad that at some point in every game, he has to be the man. He has to lead and we will follow. Thad is our go-to guy and he delivered. South simply didn’t have it’s go-to guy (Argrett) in there tonight. That’s the difference in the ballgame.”

But neither Mathews or Davis was interested in taking anything at all away from the Hornets’ strong play, no matter how undermanned the Raiders were.

“Salisbury’s a good team,” acknowledged Davis. “Good shooters and good ballhandlers and they play hard.”

The Hornets did play hard on defense, holding South without a field goal for the first six minutes of the game and for the first four minutes of the second half.

Then there was the overwhelming rebounding. Besides Pryor’s amazing night, Terry Johnson, Boo Blount, Michael Blount, Ken Drye and Stephen Blanton added at least six rebounds apiece to the scarily uneven board battle.

“I don’t care who we have in the game, kids still have to take care of business,” said Davis. “We can still box out, we just didn’t do it.”

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NOTES: The positives for the Raiders were basically Girty (17 points) and Diggs (13), both of whom had their best games of the season. ... South played East Rowan in a 1:30 losers bracket game today. ... Drye had 13 points and Boo Blount 12. Both added outstanding floor games. ... Michael Blount got his first start for the Hornets and scored two early buckets as Salisbury jumped on top 6-0. ... Salisbury has played Davie twice already. The Hornets were blown out 101-61 with Pryor scoring seven and fell 90-87 with Pryor getting 28. Sounds like they’ll go as far tonight as Pryor can lead them.

SOUTH (64) — King 3, Childers 5, Cook 4, Faggart 6, Kennedy 1, Beck 9, D.Daugherty 6, Diggs 13, Girty 17, Miller.

SALISBURY(76) — T.Johnson 6, B.Blount 12, M. Blount 5, Pryor 25, J.Johnson 5, Drye 13, Blanton 4, Jones 4, M.Daugherty, Knauf 2, Speigner, Leonard.

South 10 19 14 21 — 64