By Mike London
mlondon@salisburypost.com
THOMASVILLE ó Salisbury’s Darien Rankin took a nasty fall when he was undercut on a layup with 4:33 remaining in Tuesday’s game.
Rankin landed on the side of his face, stayed down a while and left the East Davidson gym with a large lump.
Rankin did leave a winner. In a game often as scary and ugly as Rankin’s plunge to the court, the Hornets beat East Davidson 57-42 to stay unbeaten in the CCC.
“The coaches told us to keep our composure after Darien got hurt,” senior guard Thaddeus Williams said. “Coach said, ‘Just four more minutes and we can get out of here.’ ”
It’s just a theory, but Salisbury coach Jason Causby believes boys games with East Davidson are invariably unsightly because the girls teams are annually ranked 1-2 in 2A.
Once the girls are finished, the gym is drained and the refs are ticked off.
“It’s always very tough following those girls,” Causby said. “The gym just seems to have a nasty atmosphere with a lot of upset and disappointed people.”
The Hornets (17-1, 8-0) made just one field goal in the third quarter, but they benefited from three first-half 3s by jayvee callup Forrest Wilkins and managed to score frequently enough to set up a first-place showdown tonight at Salisbury with Providence Grove.
“Forrest is a shooter, and he stepped up,” Williams said. “I kept telling him to spot up and I’d get him the ball.”
The constant for Salisbury was defense. The Hornets held East Davidson (6-11, 4-5) scoreless the last 6 minutes, 40 seconds of the first quarter to take an 11-4 lead.
The Hornets, who forced 24 turnovers, maintained that lead all night, but they were ahead only 37-32 heading to the fourth quarter.
“For some reason, we didn’t play with the swagger we had in recent wins,” East Davidson coach Matt Jacobs said. “We were playing like crap, but we’re still only down five going to the fourth quarter. Salisbury brought its ‘B’ game, and I think our ‘A’ game beats their ‘B’ game, but we just didn’t bring it.”
Rankin went down with the Hornets leading 50-36. They moved the ball around and hit free throws to finish it off.
“We’ll need to play better against Providence Grove,” Causby said. “You look at scores, and they’re playing better than anyone in the league ó including us.”
salisbury (57) ó Wilkins 12, Williams 8, Abel 8, Rankin 7, Weant 6, Knox 6, Morris 4, Phillips 4, Lingard 2, Almeida
east davidson (42) ó Dodd 13, Clark 2, Diamond, Barton, DillardSalisbury 11 17 9 20 ó 57
E. Davidson 4 15 13 10 ó 42