High school basketball: Jacobs climbing the ladder for Falcons
Published 2:58 am Wednesday, February 2, 2022
- West Rowan’s Levon Jacobs (23). Fourth seed West Rowan high school boys team defeated the fifth seed East Rowan team in the opening round of the Sam Moir Christmas Classic . JON C LAKEY / FOR THE SALISBURY POST. 12/28/21, Salisbury,NC.
West Rowan’s Levon Jacobs works inside against East Rowan in the Christmas tourney. JON C LAKEY / FOR THE SALISBURY POST.
Staff report
MOUNT ULLA — West Rowan coach Mike Gurley sends sophomores who are 6-foot-7 and 6-foot-9 onto the floor for those heated South Piedmont Conference battles, so this is a squad that oozes potential and promises future banners.
“I’m proud of who we are and I’m proud of the team we’re becoming,” Gurley said.
The growing pains have been there, as expected. Some hard lessons have been learned.
Gurley is staying the course with the youngsters and was rewarded in Tuesday night’s 67-50 win against Lake Norman Charter.
Levon Jacobs, the 6-foot-7 half of the blue monsters, turned in a monumental game with 27 points and 20 rebounds. His previous high had been 14 points.
Jacobs didn’t score in the first quarter, so he was really special after that.
He’s a tall guy who can shoot it. He nailed a huge 3-pointer in the near-miss at Concord last week and he hit three more bonus balls on Tuesday.
It was 29-all at the half. West pushed ahead in a tense third quarter, then dominated the fourth.
“In the second half, our bigs took over the game,” Gurley said.
Bryson Cowan, the 6-foot-9 youngster, scored 12 points. Senior Josh Noble, a big guy who will be signing a football scholarship today, contributed a career-best eight points.
West held Lake Norman Charter, a solid-shooting team, to seven points in the fourth quarter.
Isaiah Martino led LNC (8-6, 5-3) with 14 points.
“We limited their 3-pointers,” Gurley said. “Will Givens and Kayvone Norman played some wonderful defense. Great effort.”
West pulled out a 54-52 decision at Lake Norman Charter, so the Falcons, who are scheduled to play at East Rowan tonight, own a sweep of the Knights.
In the RPI rankings, the Falcons (7-6, 5-3) are 21st in 3A West, while Lake Norman Charter is 30th.
The Knights are scheduled to play second-place Concord for the first time tonight.
LNC 11 18 14 7 — 50
W. Rowan 9 20 18 20 — 67
LNC — Martino 14, Espinoza 8, Kester 7, Burnette 5, Carswell 4, Lowe 4, C. Fox 3, J. Magnuson 3, C. Magnuson 2.
WEST — Jacobs 27, Cowan 12, Noble 8, Norman 7, Gill 7, Holmes 3, Givens 3.
