By Mike London

Salisbury Post

WINSTON-SALEM — South Rowan’s girls got second, third, fourth and fifth shots against R.J. Reynolds and beat the Demons 52-42 to end a five-game losing streak.

South overwhelmed Reynolds 47-18 on the glass on Wednesday night, including a 26-8 margin in the first half.

Reynolds (1-12, 0-4) is an underwhelming team outside of athletic Charity Britton (22 points), but the board domination still was just what the doctor ordered for the Raiders, who hadn’t experienced the sweet taste of victory since Dec. 11.

“You can’t start a winning streak until you get that first one,” said pleased South coach Jim Brooks. “Really, this was a scary game, a nerve-wracking game to come up here for our first game back. You never know how girls will react.”

The Raiders (6-7, 1-1) reacted well enough to get their first CPC win.

“We have our confidence back now,” South junior Katherine Van Wieren said. “We showed what we can do and how much more we’re capable of than what we’ve done so far.”

Things went the way they were supposed to go when Brooks started game-planning for this season.

The Raiders had a huge height advantage, but they almost always have a huge height advantage. The difference was this time they used it — no pun intended — wisely. All three of Brooks’ 6-footers posted double-doubles.

Junior Katie Wise had one of her strongest games with 14 points and 11 rebounds.

Van Wieren had 10 boards and scored a career-high 23 points despite not taking a shot in the first quarter.

Sophomore Taylor May overcame shooting 2-for-10 in the first quarter to score 12 points and yank down 11 boards.

‘Three double-doubles, yeah, that’s really good,” Brooks said. “Reynolds was shooting 3-pointers, and we were getting something pretty good just about every time down the floor. There weren’t very many possessions when we missed and only got one shot.”

Point guard Kristen Brown would need a ladder to be a 6-footer, but she anchored South’s 2-3 zone with seven steals and did the bulk of the ball-handling. Kim Wilson had a tough shooting night but was instrumental in getting the ball to her teammates inside.

“Kim wasn’t shooting, but she was passing like crazy,” Van Wieren said. “We’re still a little spastic with some of our passes at times, but we’re getting there. All the double-doubles were great, but that’s what should be expected of us every night.”

South didn’t get any points off the bench, but Molly Garrett and Lauren Houston helped on the boards, Krista Haywood took a charge, and Brooks got some steady minutes from Erin Morton.

South led 22-13 at halftime after Van Wieren scored all 11 of the Raiders’ second-quarter points.

Britton’s shooting fueled a spurt by the Demons that cut South’s lead to 28-25 midway through the third quarter, but Brooks called timeout, and the Raiders reeled off a 12-2 run to reassert control.

Wise, Van Wieren and Brown had follow shots to get the decisive run rolling.

“We calmed down and played pretty well,” Brooks said. “This was a good step for us.”

south rowan (52) — Van Wieren 23, Wise 14, May 12, Brown 2, Wilson 1, Garrett, Morton, Haywood, Houston.

reynolds (42) — Britton 22, Smart 11, Franklin 6, Hogaluna 3, Cuthbertson, Williams, Dunn, Buchanan, Smith, Rinard.

S. Rowan 11 11 20 10 — 52

Reynolds 8 5 18 11 — 42

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Contact Mike London at 704-797-4259 or mlondon@salisburypost.com.