By Mike London
mlondon@salisburypost.com
SPENCER — Hustle is wonderful, but it’s also necessary to put the ball in the hole occasionally.
North Rowan’s girls skied for 40 rebounds and forced 23 turnovers on Thursday, but they were still beaten 55-37 at home by YVC opponent North Moore. The Cavaliers have lost eight straight since topping South Rowan in the Moir Christmas tournament
“Good effort tonight, but a lot of times we just played volleyball at the rim,” North coach Tony Hillian said. “We never stopped trying, but we couldn’t make the stickbacks or the free throws.”
In the first three quarters, the Cavaliers shot 8-for-53 from the field — a 15 percent success rate. That wasn’t going to get it done against second-place North Moore.
North Moore (12-5, 8-2) grabbed the lead in the first quarter on 3-pointers by Katelyn Sheffield, Tashanna Farmer and Jessie Sheffield and kept it.
North Rowan forced a helter-skelter pace in a frenzied second quarter. The Cavaliers endured five scoreless minutes between layups by Teaunna Cuthbertson and JoJo Carby, but they made enough stops to stay reasonable close. North Moore’s lead was 26-14 at halftime.
“North Rowan is very fast, very athletic,,” North Moore coach Sammy McNeill said. “I told our girls they were going to try to sucker us into a track meet, but we had to play basketball.”
North Moore is a man-to-man defensive team, but it didn’t take McNeill long to figure out his best option was to let the Cavs fire away unsuccessfully from long range.
“We never play zone, but we played zone tonight,” he said. “We really packed it in, squeezed the middle. They were going have to make outside shots to beat us.”
North Rowan didn’t get any closer than an 11-point deficit after halftime.
North Moore star Coco Brower, a junior post player who already has 1,000 points, shot only 9-for-30 from the floor but still dominated with 18 points and 20 rebounds.
Ronesha Bradley had 10 rebounds for the Cavs. JoJo Carby scored 12 points, eight in the fourth quarter. Teaunna Cuthbertson made two 3s and scored 11 but shot just 4-for-20 from the field.
“Teaunna needed to attack more, but they called a charge on her early, so she wasn’t driving,” Hillian said.
The Cavs (4-12, 3-6) are minus shooter Kelli Berry, who broke an ankle last week at Chatham Central.
NORTH MOORE (55)— Brower 18, K. Sheffield 9, J. Sheffield 8, Farmer 7, Davis 6, Horne 4, Lowe 2, Garner 1, Green, Williams, Giles.
NORTH ROWAN (37) — Carby 12, Cuthbertson 11, Bradley 5, Vann 2, Bush 2, Miller 1, Dickerson, Sells.
N. Moore 17 9 13 16 — 55
N Rowan 8 6 11 12 — 37