Staff report

MOUNT ULLA — Evan Kennedy stayed hot, and Brant Graham got hot on Monday as West Rowan’s boys basketball team beat Mount Pleasant 65-59.

Graham, a junior three-sport athlete who is best known as the Falcons’ quarterback, swished five 3-pointers in the third quarter, drilled six 3s in all and scored a career-best 24 points. Kennedy, a physical guard who has been mentioned on some All-State football teams, has been on a roll for several weeks once he found his basketball legs. He scored 23 on drives and free throws.

Mount Pleasant (8-7) is 29th in the 2A West rankings, so it was the Falcons’ best win of the season by quite a bit. The other victories for the Falcons (5-9) came against East Rowan and South Rowan, teams that are at the bottom of the 3A West rankings.

West has won three in a row.

“We’re still hoping to crawl up in the standings in the South Piedmont Conference a little bit,” West head coach Dadrian Cuthbertson said. “We played a pretty good second half tonight. The first half, Mount Pleasant was getting all the loose balls, those 50/50 balls, so we challenged our guys at the half that they needed to play harder. They did play harder, and then we started making our shots.”

The game swung in the third quarter. West scored 21 in the quarter, all by Graham or Kennedy.

Kennedy and Josiah Young combined for 15 points in the fourth quarter as West finished off the Tigers.

Kennedy, who kept the Falcons in the game in the first quarter by scoring all nine of his team’s points, has averaged 17.9 points over his last seven games.

“Evan is  playing very well,” Cuthbertson said. “We beat a good team tonight. Mount Pleasant has got some athletic kids. Maybe getting this one will help us get on a roll.”

West plays at Lake Norman Charter on Tuesday. West lost a close one to the Knights at home early in the season.

West scoring — Graham 24, Kennedy 23, Young 9, Moten 5, Tucker 4.