By Nick Bowton

Salisbury Post

Fourth-quarter turnovers plagued Davie County in its Christmas tournament semifinal loss Thursday.

In the third-place game Friday, the War Eagles had turn-over trouble the entire game.

Third-seeded West Rowan took advantage and defeated fifth-seeded Davie 49-44 to finish third in the Sam Moir Christmas Classic. The Falcons didn’t play their best game, but they didn’t have to Friday afternoon at Goodman Gym.

“I’d like to take credit for it and say we D’d them up and caused it, but a lot of their turnovers were just throwing the ball away,” West coach Bob Blake said. “We played pretty good defense, but we didn’t play that good of defense to cause that.”

Blake’s Falcons, who were led by Peyton Sawyer’s 13 points and six assists, seized control early, as Davie began the second quarter with a barrage of turnovers. Travelling violations. Five-second violations. More travelling. Poor passes. Miss handling the ball. And more travelling.

Four of Davie’s six points in the second quarter came from the free-throw line. All of them came in the final 1:46.

By halftime, the War Eagles had 19 turnovers and trailed 30-17. Davie (5-9) didn’t help itself any by shooting 5-of-20 from the floor in the first half.

“We just seemed out of sync all the way around,” Davie coach Debbie Evans said. “From the very beginning, the whole team was out of sync. When shots didn’t fall it created frustration for us. When that frustration sets in, it’s hard to fight that off. We just did not show up ready to play today as a team.”

While Davie struggled with turnovers the entire game, West didn’t do much better. The Falcons turned the ball over 30 times themselves.

West, however, at least shot the ball fairly well. The Falcons (6-5) shot 40.5 percent for the game and had 25 points off turnovers. Sawyer shot 5-for-5, and Wendi Adams and Rachel Graham each had 12 points and five rebounds.

Davie, meanwhile, shot 27.3 percent. Meisha Fowler scored 12 points but shot 5-for-20.

The War Eagles played their best ball in the final quarter, when they had only three of their 32 turnovers and twice got within four points. That just wasn’t enough to overcome the horrendous start.

Davie (44) — Fowler 12, Turner 9, Garrett 7, Wharton 5, Owens 4, Parrish 3, Evans 3, Brown 1, Walker, Riddle, Pratapas.

west rowan (49) — Sawyer 13, Graham 12, Adams 12, Stout 5, Foster 3, Turner 3, Taylor 1, Izze, Kraft, Simmons, Cox.

Davie 11 6 10 17 — 44

W. Rowan 14 16 8 11 — 49

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