By Nick Bowton

Salisbury Post

LANDIS — Jim Brooks wanted his South Rowan girls basketball team to come out aggressively Friday night after lackluster losses to West Rowan and Salisbury earlier this week.

That meant trouble for Carson.

Led by double-digit scoring from Kim Wilson, Katie Wise and Taylor May, South played aggressively from the opening tip and crushed the Cougars 61-36 in the teams’ second meeting in two weeks. South won the first game against its new southern Rowan rival 40-23.

“Playing West and Salisbury in the same week, you understand where you are and you understand what you’ve got to do,” Brooks said. “And we felt like we could do some things we haven’t been able to do. We wanted to come out and be super aggressive, which we hadn’t been. Even the first game against (Carson), we really, really hadn’t come out and been aggressive.

“And it’s always gonna be a rivalry school. You gotta come out and make some points, see what can happen.”

What can happen is a 16-2 lead after the first quarter and a 32-12 lead at halftime.

About the only phase of the game South (3-2) didn’t dominate from the beginning was rebounding. Carson (0-3) outrebounded the Raiders 13-9 in the first quarter, but South quickly fixed that slight blemish.

Junior forward Katherine Van Wieren had six of her game-high 15 rebounds in the second quarter and five more in the third. The third quarter ended with a Van Wieren putback for a 46-21 lead.

“One of the biggest plays was at the end of the third quarter with three seconds on the clock and we got two offensive rebounds and a basket,” Brooks said. “I told the girls that right there is proving you can break teams in different ways.

“That’s what we wanted to do — show ’em, ‘OK, we’re taller. We wanna really go at you.’ ”

The Raiders showed that ability throughout the game — and from all over the court.

Wise scored South’s first six points of the third quarter from 3 feet and in. She finished with 14 points. May scored from both inside and out and had 12 points and eight rebounds. Wilson made four 3-pointers, led the Raiders with 16 points and gave South its first 30-point lead when her final 3 made it 53-23 with 6:16 remaining.

“Tonight, defensively, we played a poor game,” Carson coach Brooke Misenheimer said. “A very poor game. In our zone, we didn’t get out and cover their shooters. If you don’t get on a shooter, of course somebody’s gonna hit the shot.

“That’s just effort. We struggled offensively, but defensively it has to be there every night.”

Misenheimer admitted her Cougars had improved in some areas since their season opener — the first game in school history — against South two weeks ago.

Most notably, she said, Carson did a better job of setting up its offense after it did something positive on the defensive end. Senior Mack White led the Cougars with a game- and career-high 19 points.

Carson, however, struggled at times just inbounding the ball. That stemmed both from South’s plan to play aggressively and the Cougars’ inexperience playing with each other.

“They were definitely the aggressor tonight,” Misenheimer said. “Any time something’s thrown at (my players) right to begin with, it’s a shock. It’s something they have to adjust to.”

SOUTH ROWAN (61) –Wilson 16, Wise 14, May 12, Van Wieren 9, Haywood 4, Morton 4, Brown 2, Houston.

Carson (36) — White 19, Howell 6, Curtindale 6, Lynn 5, Hough, Cress, Marshall, Beaty.

S. Rowan 16 16 14 15 — 61

Carson 2 10 9 15 — 36

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Contact Nick Bowton at 704-797-4256 or nbowton@salisburypost.com.