By Steve Huffman
Salisbury Post
With 1:12 left in the first quarter Thursday night, Salisbury and Ashe County were locked in a 14-14 stalemate.
It was anybody’s game.
Rest assured it didn’t stay that way for long.
Bubbles Phifer buried a 3-pointer to give the Hornets a 17-14 lead, and from that point Salisbury was off to the races.
The Hornets went on to win 65-37 in a 2A sectional semifinal showdown.
The Hornets are at home again at 7 tonight against North Stanly in the sectional final.
“We didn’t know much about them, and we started out in a man-to-man defense,” Salisbury coach Dee Miller said said of the visiting Huskies. “We fell back to a zone and it worked pretty well, so we decided to stay with it.”
The zone didn’t just work pretty well for the Hornets ó it worked to near-perfection.
By the two-minute mark of the second quarter, when Ayanna Holmes bagged a field goal, Salisbury’s lead had swelled to 36-17.
The top-seeded Hornets (26-1) out-hustled and out-muscled the second-seeded Huskies (22-5) for the duration.
“Once they get going, they usually do pretty well,” Miller said of her charges. “Sometimes we just have a little trouble getting them going.”
Phifer led the Hornets with 27 points, including a trio of three-pointers. Shi-Heria Shipp followed with 16.
By the mid-point of the second quarter, it was obvious the game was going to get out of control.
A pair of free throws by Shipp boosted the Hornets’ lead to 25-15 with 5:03 left in the second quarter.
Ashe’s Mallary Clay finally managed a field goal, the Huskies’ first since the 1:12 mark of the opening quarter.
But Salisbury’s onslaught was slowed only momentarily.
By the time Holmes put back a miss by Phifer, the Hornets’ lead was 31-17. It grew to 34-17 on a 3-pointer by Phifer.
The Hornets were up 37-19 at intermission.
Ashe tried to press midway through the third quarter, but the effort drew little success.
A 3-pointer by Shipp with 6:12 left in the third boosted Salisbury’s lead to 43-19. Another by Phifer made it 46-21.
By the end of the third quarter, the Hornets led 56-27.
“We challenge the girls to win each quarter, and I think we did that tonight,” Miller said. “That’s a big thing for us.”
Well, the Hornets almost won every quarter. They were out-scored 10-9 in the fourth quarter, by which time the outcome was long-since settled.
The Huskies placed only one player, Kim McNeil in double figures. She finished with 15. Clay followed with eight for Ashe.
Ashe Co. (37) ó McNeil 15, Clay 8, Hudler 6, Barker 3, McVey 3, Yearick 2, Wagner, Mikeal, Elliott.
SALISBURY (65) ó B.Phifer 27, Shipp 16, Wylie 8, As. Holmes 4, Ay. Holmes 4, N.Phifer 4, Miller 2, Rice, Clinding.
Ashe Co. 15 4 8 10 ó 37
Salisbury 21 16 19 9 ó 65
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Contact Steve Huffman at 704-797-4222 or shuffman@salisburypost.com.