By Jordan Honeycutt
sports@salisburypost.com
STATESVILLE — An inside/outside attack, as any coach will tell you, is a crucial element to having a winning team.
Statesville has a great one.
The Greyhounds defeated South Rowan 83-41 in the NPC semifinals Wednesday, due to in large part, its inside game.
The duo of Josh Gaither and Jaquan Warren each put up 16 points and out-muscled the Raiders on the boards.
“We really had a lot of self-inflicted wounds tonight,” South Rowan coach John Davis said. “Between turnovers, dribbling the ball out of bounds and not rebounding, we didn’t help ourselves early and it just snowballed from there.”
The Raiders had no one score in double figures and were led by Shawn Spry’s seven points.
Davis had a depleted lineup due to disciplinary reasons and played call-ups from the jayvee squad for most of the second half.
“I wanted to get these kids game experience and let them try and score their first varsity points for us and show me what they can do. I was pleased with what they gave me tonight,” he said. “They competed, every one of them.”
The foursome of reference — Quantarius Ryan, Brock Miller, Eric Goldston and Dalton Carter — combined for 14 off the bench.
Statesville was just too strong.
“We did what we had to do tonight to get where we want to go — the finals,” Gaither said. “We are on a mission that we are calling a ‘Road to Glory’ and it begins with the NPC championship.”
With the game getting away from South in the third quarter, Warren brought the house down with a two-handed hammer dunk off of an off-the-backboard alley-oop pass from guard Nick Schofield.
“We were able to really get out and run and we are at our best when we can do that and play that style,” Statesville coach Sonny Schofield said. “The team this year is so different from last year in that Josh and Nick’s scoring is down and Jaquan and other’s is up. Much more balance and it is very pleasing to see team play.”
Four Raiders scored five points, including Bonner Buchanan and Dillon Parker.
The Raiders will now await to see who they will meet in the opening round of the state playoffs next week.
“No matter who we play, we have to get back to work and cut out our mistakes,” Davis said. “You can’t beat any good teams like Statesville playing how we did tonight.”
As for the Hounds, they have unfinished business.
Statesville was knocked off in the tournament championship game a year ago by West Rowan, with whom a possible rematch looms. Statesville’s coach doesn’t care who it is.
“Whichever one wins,” Schofield said, “we are going to have to dictate the pace and just play Greyhound basketball.”STATESVILLE (83) — Gaither 16, Warren 16, Schofield 13, Thompson 11, Willis 8, Tucker 6, Borders 4, Savoy 4, Gill 3, Knox 2, Williams.
SOUTH ROWAN (41) — Spry 7, Buchannan 5, Miller 5, Parker 5, Ryan 5, Goldston 4, Goodman 3, Tyler 3, Medlin 2, Washington 2, Carter, Glenn, Lambert.
S. Rowan 10 06 12 13 — 41
Statesville 18 21 23 21 — 83