By Bret Strelow

Salisbury Post

LANDIS — South Rowan’s girls basketball team has a solid frontline, but the Raiders almost ran out of ball-handlers in a 60-48 loss to North Davidson on Friday.

Starting point guard Kristen Brown picked up her third foul with 2:21 left in the first quarter and sat out the rest of the half. She committed her fourth early in the third quarter.

Krista Haywood directed the offense at times, but she picked up her third and fourth fouls in the final two minutes of the first half.

Guards and post players alike struggled to break North Davidson’s press. South coach Jim Brooks would have relied even more on versatile forward Taylor May, but she missed time in the first half with two fouls.

“It’s no secret our strength is our size,” Brooks said. “When you press us, we do OK, but when our ball-handlers get in foul trouble, then it’s a free-for-all.”

Kim Wilson scored 17 points and Katherine Van Wieren had a double-double (10 points, 10 rebounds) to pace South, which jumped ahead 8-0 midway through the first quarter and led for the opening 12 minutes.

The score was still tied with 90 seconds left in the first half, but four South turnovers aided a 9-0 run to end the quarter.

“From the get-go, we came out and were outrebounding them, making good passes, running our offense,” Wilson said. “After that, we kind of let that go. They’ve got some really fast guards, and we have to work on passing to break the press instead of trying to dribble.”

A 3-pointer from Allison Day, who scored 11 of her game-high 25 points in the second quarter, sent South (6-8, 1-2 CPC) into the locker room facing a 32-23 deficit.

“We got some turnovers and picked up the pace of the game,” North Davidson coach Kim Payne said. “The pace really drug for us the whole first quarter.”

South trailed 34-28 after Wilson scored with 3:38 left in the third quarter, but North Davidson (9-6, 4-1 CPC) responded with a 10-0 run.

The Raiders finally cut their deficit to single digits on a basket by May with 43 seconds left.

“Our players had a chance to fold the tents and go home,” Brooks said, “but there isn’t any quit in this bunch.”

NORTH DAVIDSON (60) — Day 25, Anderson 16, Welch 8, Allen 3, A.Clodfelter 2, C.Clodfelter 2, Howard 2, Gilley 2.

SOUTH ROWAN (48) — Wilson 17, Van Wieren 10, May 8, Wise 7, Garrett 3, Morton 2, Haywood 1, Brown, Houston.

N. Davidson 9 23 14 14 — 60

S. Rowan 14 9 9 16 — 48

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Contact Bret Strelow at 704-797-4258 or bstrelow@salisburypost.com.