From staff reports

Friday games …

SALISBURY — It was a big night for Salisbury’s Smith brothers.

Senior Myles Smith scored his 1,000th career point on a reverse layup late in a 96-70 win over North Rowan, while sophomore Blake Smith scored a career-best 16.

Salisbury (21-3, 12-0) put four more men in double figures as they extended their winning streak to 20 games and their Central Carolina Conference winning streak to 35 games. Braylon Taylor scored 22. Bryce Dalton had 13. Hank Webb and Macari House added 10 each.

Salisbury won at home on Senior Night and beat North for the third time this season. The Hornets already had won at North and at Catawba in the Christmas Tournament. A fourth meeting — this one would be at Lexington – would come on Tuesday if both teams win their CCC tournament games on Monday. Salisbury is hosting Monday’s doubleheader. The top-seeded Hornets will play No. 4 Thomasville, while No. 2 North (15-9, 9-3) will tangle with No. 3 Lexington.

North jumped out to a 7-0 lead on Friday but the Hornets roared back. Salisbury led 23-19 after a quarter despite a 12-point first quarter by North’s Dyzarious Carpenter. Taylor made two 3-pointers during the Hornets’ 30-point second quarter, and they were in command 53-31 at halftime.

Carpenter made four of North’s six 3s and scored 24. Emari Russell, who is making a run at 1000 points, scored 15. JP Polk also had 15 for the Cavaliers.

North Rowan    19   12   15   24   — 70

Salisbury           23   30   19   24    — 96

North — D. Carpenter 24, Polk 15, Russell 15, Williams 5, Brown 5, Feamster 3, Mosley 2. J. Alford 1.

Salisbury — Taylor 22, M. Smith 21, B. Smith 16, Dalton 13, House 10, Webb 10, Matthews 2, Davis 2.

•••

GRANITE QUARRY — Robinson expected an easy night with good reason, but didn’t get it.

The Bulldogs had to rally in the second half to beat East Rowan 69-62 in a South Piedmont Conference regular-season finale. The Bulldogs scored 50 in the second half.

Robinson (21-3, 15-1) had eviscerated East 80-32 in Concord in January, so the plan was to rest the starters in the rematch.

Coming off a beating from A.L. Brown on Wednesday, East (2-22, 2-14) took advantage of the opportunity and pummeled the Bulldogs in the first half. It was Senior Night for the Mustangs, and they had some extra zip, They led 39-19 at the break. Brady Ailshie had nine points, more than his average, by halftime.

Robinson’s starters took the floor for the second half, although the Mustangs didn’t roll over. Logan Bradley made three 3-pointers in the third quarter. Robinson won the quarter 21-15, but East took a 54-40 lead to the final eight minutes.

Robinson owned the fourth quarter, outscoring the Mustangs 29-8 to pull out the win, although the crowd got some unexpected entertainment.

‘We did our best to pull it off,” East head coach Trey Ledbetter said.

Robinson got scoring from 11 players. Jamell Reid and David Frazier scored 11 each. All their points came in the second half.

Bradley scored 18 for the Mustangs, his best game of the season. Brody Thomas scored 14.

Seeded eighth, East will travel to top-seeded Robinson for a first-round SPC tourney game on Monday.

Robinson    9    10    21   29   – 69

East            15   24    15    8     — 62

EAST scoring — Bradley 18, Thomas 14, Ailshie 11, Reid 6, Krider 6, Lino 5, Klingler 2.

•••

CONCORD — It couldn’t have been any tighter, but Northwest Cabarrus survived two Carson 3-point attempts in the final seconds and beat the Cougars 77-74 in a South Piedmont Conference battle.

Northwest Cabarrus (14-9, 11-5) won on an emotional Senior Night and was able to split with Carson. Carson (16-8, 10-6) had spanked Northwest 67-46 in China Grove in January, but the SPC is unpredictable.

Anderson Lee scored 23 for the Trojans with a combination of pull-ups and drives.

Jonah Drue was terrific for the Cougars with 27 points. Jacob Mills scored 21, Drew Neve and 14, and CP Perry scored 10.

Northwest’s aggressive defense limited Neve’s touches in the first half and limited Carson’s bread-and-butter 3-point looks, but pull-ups by Mills and tough drives by Drye kept Carson close. Northwest got 13 first-half points from Lee and led 37-31 at the break.

Northwest pushed its lead to double-figures in the third quarter, When Landon Rowe, who had a 10-point third quarter, made a 3-pointer for a 60-45 lead, it looked over — but it wasn’t.

Neve had an assertive third quarter. When he swooped in off the dribble to score with his left hand to close that quarter, Northwest’s lead was reduced to 62-53.

NWC led 72-62 with 2:52 left, but the Trojans were cooling off and Carson was heating up. Neve drilled a 3-pointer with 1:43 left to cut the deficit to four. Mills banged a 3 with 1:04 left — Perry made a fantastic pass to him — and the Trojans were clinging to a one-point lead.

Northwest had chances to put it away, but missed free throws left the door open for the Cougars. Carson almost got it done, down three, on that last possession. Drye missed on a long-distance 3, but Corbin Hales somehow got the rebounds. He pitched it out to Mills for a left-wing 3 that he’ll make about half the time, but this one wouldn’t fall, and it was over.

Drye made four of Carson’s eight 3s, while Mills made three long ones.

Carson is seeded fourth for the SPC tourney. That means a Monday home game against fifth-seeded Central Cabarrus.

Northwest Cabarrus is the 2 seed and will get a visit from seventh-seeded West Rowan.

Carson  13    18   22  21   — 74

NWC     17    20   25  15    — 77

Carson — Drye 27, Mills 21, Neve 14, Perry 10, Walters 1, Martin 1.

NWC — Lee 23, Gonder 14, Rowe 13, Rochevot 9, E. Brown 8, S. Brown 6, Walker 4,

•••

LANDIS – South Rowan’s Brooks Overcash had a wide-open layup at the end, but instead he handed off to Ben Davies, so Davies could get in the scorebook.

One final unselfish act on the court by Overcash, who had another cool moment right before that, completing one last accurate pass to Jadon Moore for a Senior Night layup.

Overcash and Moore led a football revival at South as seniors, but the talent disparity between South and the rest of the South Piedmont Conference in basketball was too wide to make much progress. Lake Norman Charter, the SPC’s sixth-place team, looked like an NBA franchise turned loose in the South gym. The Knights (8-13, 7-9) ran and dunked and crushed the Raiders 81-40.

Elijah Anderson, who had a promising career disrupted by a serious knee injury, made a 3-pointer from in front of the South bench to provide some smiles.

Eleven different Raiders scored, but there were a lot of 2s and 3s in the scorebook.

Tristian Littlejohn got the first two for South on a layup for a 2-2 tie, but that was the last deadlock. Lake Norman Charter ran off the next 13 points. It was over early.

South actually had an 8-0 run in the second quarter to turn 31-8 into 31-16, but it got completely out of hand in the third quarter when the Knights outscored South 27-5. The Knights got the 40-point lead for a running clock late in the third and they led by as many as 47 points.

Braden Wilkie scored 14 and led five Knights in double figures.

South (1-22, 0-16) was the ninth-place team in the SPC, and there’s an eight-team tournament, so South closed the books with Friday’s lopsided loss.

Lake Norman Charter will be in tournament action on Monday at No. 3 seed Concord.

LN Charter    23    19   27  12   — 81

South Rowan  7    14    5     14   — 40

SOUTH scoring — Moore 8, Littlejohn 6, Ritchie 4, Goodman 4, Anderson 4, Rohletter 3, Burris 3, Overcash 2, Davies 2, Collins 2, Barham 2.