Staff report

THOMASVILLE — The first loss for North Rowan’s boys basketball team was untimely.

It came in the first Central Carolina Conference game.

North lost at Thomasville 72-57 on Friday in a rescheduled affair.

“They outplayed us, they outworked us, and they just played harder than we did,” North head coach Jason Causby said.

It’s been an unusual week for North, a week that included postponements of Wednesday’s home game with West Rowan and Friday’s home game with South Davidson.

Thomasville (1-1, 1-0) had been scheduled to play at Salisbury, but the schedule was adjusted for Thomsville to play the Cavaliers (5-1, 0-1) instead.

“We didn’t have a great week of practice, we didn’t get better, and if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse,” Causby said. “We’ve had some early success, and that’s fine. But sometimes that hampers growth.”

It was a tight game most of the way. North trailed 17-14 after a quarter and was down 34-27 at the break.

“The third quarter, we got back to 42-41, but we didn’t capitalize on our opportunity,” Causby said. “Then it got away from us.”

In the fourth quarter, the Cavaliers had to chase the Bulldogs. Johnathan Gladden got loose for four 3-pointers as the home team pulled away.

Gladden (20), Janhri Luckey (15), CJ Dickerson (14) and Jaylen Henry (10) reached double figures for a veteran Thomasville team.

North got 13 from Derrick Hanson, 11 from Quashawn Carpenter and a season-high nine from Pharrell Hailey.

Hanson and Carpenter both are averaging 12.5 points per game. Thomasville held Amir Alexander, who came in averaging 12, to half his average.

Ten Cavaliers scored. They just didn’t score often enough and left Causby looking for answers.

“We’d been able to get the critical stops and the key scores in all our close games,” Causby said. “Tonight we didn’t, and that can be traced to poor practice habits. Hopefully, this is the wakeup call we needed. If it’s not, we might squander the opportunity we have for a special season.”

 

North                  14   13   16   14   — 57

Thomasville      17    17    14   24   — 72

NORTH SCORING — Hanson 13, Q. Carpenter 11, Hailey 9, Alexander 6, D. Carpenter 4, Maxwell 4, Smith 3, O’Kelly 3, McArthur 2, Whitney 2.