By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

MOORESVILLE — Not your run-of-the-mill opening night game.

West Rowan’s girls basketball team trailed by as many as 17 points in the second quarter at Lake Norman, before roaring back for a 60-58 overtime victory on Monday.

“Lake Norman was shooting lights-out and we were shooting like Carolina did against Michigan State,” said Ashley Poole, who kicked off her fifth season as West’s head coach in wild fashion. “We missed about seven wide-open layups early and we got ourselves in a big hole.”

West dug out mostly through the efforts of Abigail Wilson, a 5-foot-10 sophomore who was a second team All-Rowan County player as a freshman. Wilson, the daughter of Rowan Hall of Famer Wendy Hampton Wilson, had a huge fourth quarter and scored a career-best 28 points. Junior guard Mary Sobataka added 19 points for a West squad that returns its top five scorers from a 13-13 team.

West won on a night when Egypt Alexander, a senior who has scored more than 1,000 points, was held to four.

Lake Norman (0-2) surged to a 17-5 lead after a quarter and added to that advantage in the early stages of the second quarter.

“We were really anxious and I guess we had some jitters early in the game,” Poole said. “But then we finally started to settle down. We played four guards a lot and we started doing a better job of locating their shooters.”

At halftime, the Falcons trailed 31-17.

West had a nice third quarter, scoring 21 points, and cut the deficit to 46-42.

West held Lake Norman to six points in the fourth quarter and caught up.

Shyann Vaughters sparked West’s defense. Wilson got hot to carry  the offense. She scored a dozen points in the fourth quarter, including the bucket with about five seconds left that sent the game to overtime.

“On our last possession, we put the ball in Abigail’s hands and she went the length of the court to score to get us to overtime,” Poole said. “Then they missed a shot at the end of regulation.”

West kept the momentum going in overtime.

Logan Good scored 20 points for the Wildcats. Lauren Sullivan had 11.

West plays at home tonight against Davie County. The varsity girls game, the third leg of a quadruple-header, is expected to start around 6:30 p.m.

 

West Rowan 60, Lake Norman 58 (OT)

WEST  ROWAN (60)

Wilson 28, Sobataka 19, Poole 5, Alexander 4, Vaughters 4, Connolly, Hillie, Robinson, Blabon.

LAKE NORMAN (58)

Good 20, Sullivan 11, Scheimer 9, Darcy 6, Kennedy 6, Wilson 4, Erwin 2.

W. Rowan           5     12   21   14   8  —   60

L. Norman           17   14    15   6   6  —  58