By Mike London
mlondon@salisburypost.com
MOORESVILLE ó Since a Jan. 7 loss at Lake Norman, West Rowan has doggedly pursued the frontrunning Wildcats.
West officially caught up when it beat Mooresville 61-43 in a makeup of a contest that was postponed twice. West and Lake Norman are both 15-1 in the NPC with two games remaining.
“We finally got rid of that half-game we were down,” West coach Mike Gurley said.
The only time West was down Saturday was 3-2. The Falcons were up 17-8 after a quarter and by 11 at the half.
When Kaleb Kimber and K.J. Sherrill scored five quick points to begin the second half, the party was over.The 6-foot-7 Sherrill was at his best with 23 points, 18 rebounds and four blocks. Chris Smith smiled frequently, collected seven rebounds and flexed the NPC’s best pair of biceps at every opportunity.
Kimber hit three 3s and scored 16. He also teamed with Jon Crucitti and Jason Grant to hold Mooresville’s talented freshman Shawn Lester, who had 27 points on Tuesday against Northwest Cabarrus, to just seven.
“He’s young, but he can pull up and shoot 3s or he can take you to the rim and dunk,” Crucitti said. “We figured if we could keep it out of his hands we’d be a lot better off.”Mission accomplished. Lester hit two heavily contested 3s, but that was about it.
West (19-2) won its 10th straight and hasn’t allowed more than 50 points to any team during the streak.
“We found out what we had to do after the Lake Norman loss, and that was get better on defense,” Sherrill said. “Now we study the key players on other teams and work at ways to stop them.”
Besides defending an athletic team well, West shot better than 50 percent in the first half. Five different Falcons hit a 3 ó including K.J. Sherrill, who also scored on drives, dunks and mid-range jumpers to boost his career total to 1,443 points.
“We tried to keep two guys on K.J., but, believe it or not, there were also times when we sort of forgot about him and let him sneak away,” Mooresville coach Mike Micklow said. “Every time we forgot, he did his stuff.”
Micklow added his youthful, 8-8 team used up its legs beating East Rowan for a must-win Friday and didn’t have enough left in the tank to seriously challenge West.
“We got better offensive looks the first time we played West,” he said. “But our defense today was still pretty good. They have a nice team, so giving up 61 isn’t bad.”
Sherrill said it felt “a little odd” playing on a Saturday afternoon, and Crucitti agreed.
“Something like that can throw your rhythm off,” he said. “But we still came over here ready to play ball.”
Gurley noticed.
“I know I haven’t been to downtown Mooresville on Saturday afternoon since I snuck into the theatre to see Godfather II,” he said with a laugh. “Yeah, we were out of our routine, but I was pleased with the focus we brought. The effort made me feel good about my guys. If we’re fortunate enough to play a Saturday playoff game, we can draw on this experience.”
west ROWAN (61) ó K.J. Sherrill 23, K. Kimber 16, K. Sherrill 5, Moore 5, Smith 4, Huffman 3, Crucitti 2, Grant 2, Gore 1, Parks, B.J. Sherrill, Noble, Phifer.
MOoresville (43) ó Sutton 8, Lester 7, Willis 5, Wilson 5, Blackwood 5, Patterson 4, I. Johnson 3, Leach 3, K. Johnson 2, Caldwell 1, Ryan.W. Rowan 17 16 14 14 ó 61
Mooresville 8 14 7 14 ó 43