By David Shaw

Salisbury Post

GRANITE QUARRY — Right from the start, East Rowan’s girls basketball team looked out-of-sync Tuesday night.

Playing without their only senior — injured forward Rebecca Cooper — the Mustangs quickly found themselves in a race with a faster horse and fell 64-39 to visiting Mount Tabor.

“We lacked intensity right from the tipoff,” sophomore Katelynne Poole said after East (5-11, 1-3 CPC) suffered its fourth straight loss. “Yeah, they were a good team. They ran it when they had to. They slowed it down. They broke our defense. It got frustrating after a while.”

Poole had 11 points for East and teammate Lisa Hill — starting in place of Cooper — contributed 12 points and eight rebounds. But it wasn’t nearly enough to hang with the CPC elite.

“They just kept their composure throughout the game,” said East coach Karen Garmon. “They kept the pressure on us, they switched defenses often and they were consistent, quick and smart.”

Sounds like a recipe for disaster for the struggling Mustangs — particularly against a team that seems to have hit its stride.

“That was one of our better four-quarter efforts,” winning coach Rick Anderson said after the league-leading Spartans (12-3 overall) improved to 5-0 in the CPC.

Mount Tabor wasted little time asserting itself. The visitors jumped to a quick 15-4 lead and held East without a basket until Hayley Miller hit a 10-foot shot midway through the first quarter.

“We like to run,” Anderson said. “We’ll go as fast as you let us go. We like to set the tempo right out of the gate and force the other team to call a timeout because we’re doing something good.”

Mount Tabor’s Rene Rector did the most damage. The senior guard — last season’s conference Player of the Year — paced all scorers with 19 points. Ten of them came in the third quarter, when MT’s lead ballooned to 51-31. “Coach warned us about her,” said Poole. “We just didn’t stop her.”

Hill was a beacon in the darkness — hitting set shots, layups and free throws and reeling in eight rebounds. “She did a good job of creating offense and going up and making them foul her,” said Garmon.

*

NOTES: Cooper’s status for Friday’s game against South Rowan is uncertain. She suffered a gash under her jaw that required nine stitches — two internal, seven external — scrapping for a loose ball in last week’s loss to West Forsyth.

MT. Tabor (64) — Rector 19, Sechrest 11, Meadows 10, Wasowski 5, Terry 4, Penley 4, Gordon 4, Palmer 2, Wheaton 2, Cameron-Fuller 2, Crawford 1.

east rowan (39) — Hill 12, Poole 11, Collins 6, Cress 5, Miller 3, S.Stout 2, Smith, Barrier, Vanderford, Everhardt.

Mt. Tabor 17 15 19 13 — 64

E. Rowan 10 8 13 8 — 39