North Boys Steamroll East

BY MIKE LONDON
SALISBURY POST

North Rowan High's Mario Sturdivant is the football team's star quarterback, so he spends most of his autumns throwing.

But now that winter and basketball season are here, the 6-3 swingman is having a good time catching - as in, catching fire with his jump shot.

Sturdivant got positively steamy on Wednesday night, doing his best impression of a microwave. The junior stringbean heated up for a 7-for-10 effort from the floor as North Rowan melted East Rowan 59-39 in a non-conference game at the East gym.

It was a game in which offense was tough to come by (the Cavaliers shot 42 percent, while East shot just 33 percent), so Sturdivant's outburst off the bench was a timely tonic for winning coach Kelly

Everhart, who watched his youthful squad improve to 2-3.

"Mario is still streaky," said Everhart. "He's had good games (23 against Salisbury) and he's had struggling games (zero points against A.L. Brown). Tonight he worked hard on the boards and got some easy inside shots. That loosened him up and made it easier for him to get some outside shots to go down."

Eleven of Sturdivant's points came in the second half, a key contribution in a low-scoring affair that saw East (1-5) score just five points the entire third quarter against North's pressure defense.

"North just whipped us," said East coach Mark Flynn. "Sometimes we handle pressure well and sometimes we don't. Tonight, we didn't handle it. We had a lot of turnovers and we didn't get a lot of good shots. Our mistakes freed them up to get a lot of easy scores."

That was Everhart's plan all along. His team has been in a shooting slump, but he felt his perimeter defense - triggered by lightning-fast guards Dre Byrd and Taivio Davis - could create Mustang mistakes in the midcourt area and subsequent scoring opportunities for the Cavs.

He was right. The Mustangs committed eight turnovers in the first eight minutes, as North's quality quickness created a 15-8 lead.

"Defensively, we just got after it," said Everhart. "We applied a lot of pressure on their guards. A lot of people stepped it up on the defensive end."

East made a bid to get back in the game in the second quarter behind seven sudden points off the bench by Mark Misenheimer. In fact, the Mustangs trailed just 17-15 with 3:54 left in the first half, but then came a miserable offensive drought. East would score only four points over the next six minutes, a stretch of futility bridging the second and third quarters.

Meanwhile, Sturdivant and Anthony Allman (14 points) were getting fired up, leading North on an 18-4 run. When Byrd made a steal and hit Tony Morgan for a layup the lead expanded to 35-19 and North had all the momentum. By the end of the third quarter, the Cavs led 55-32 and victory was assured.

"North's got great speed," said Flynn. "They're young just like we are, but I like their team. They've got three or four guys who can score, and you have to try to prepare for all of them."

Travis Sloop had nine points and seven rebounds for East, while Adam Cornelius made a couple of 3-pointers and scored eight points, but Flynn was far from satisfied with an East effort that produced only 12 field goals.

"I'm not sure we played as hard in the second half as we've been playing," said Flynn. "But this is no time to drop our heads. We've got to work to get better, because from here on out, it isn't going to get any easier."