By Mike London
mlondon@salisburypost.com
GRANITE QUARRY ó Jay M. Robinson’s girls already have one Division I signee, and it’s just a matter of time before they have two.
A coach from Liberty was on hand scouting Robinson’s 5-foot-11 junior guard Kelsee Cheek and got an eyeful. Cheek scored 30 points from all corners of the gym as undefeated Robinson cruised past East Rowan 72-37 on Wednesday.
Robinson’s 6-1 senior Tabby Koerner, a Gardner-Webb signee, controlled the paint with 11 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks.
Taylor Honeycutt scored a career-high 10 points for the Mustangs, who were overmatched in height. Alaina Vanderford added eight.Robinson (6-0) had already beaten Carson and South Rowan and had little trouble adding East (0-6) to its list of Rowan victims.”We’ve been kind of lackadaisical lately, but we had more passion tonight,” Robinson coach Lin Smithson said. “We played more together.”
That was bad news for the Mustangs, who haven’t started 0-6 since 1967. The biggest obstacle has been an unfortunate schedule. East has played four games against teams that are still perfect ó Salisbury, Davie and Robinson. Hickory Ridge and Concord, the other teams that beat East, aren’t undefeated, but they’re strong and figure to battle Robinson for the SPC championship.
“Robinson’s an excellent team, so big and so relaxed, and they handled everything we threw at them,” East coach Karen Garmon said. “If you didn’t look at the scoreboard, I thought we were playing pretty well, but it was like playing UConn.”
Koerner had seven points and seven rebounds as Robinson built an 18-8 lead after a quarter. East didn’t make a field goal until Vanderford scored on a driving scoop with five seconds left in the quarter. Cheek immediately answered that shot with a sweet, buzzer-beating banker.
Cheek had 18 points at halftime, one more than the Mustangs. No one in the Robinson section chanted “Kelsee’s winning,” but it would’ve been accurate.
East couldn’t make any kind of run after halftime.
“We ran our offense better, but we’re struggling ” Garmon said. “We’ve got to shoot with more confidence.”
Smithson had her team ready. She scouted East against Concord when the Mustangs put up 60 points.
“We knew we couldn’t come over here and play lazy,” Smithson said. “I was worried, but we had one of our better games.”
robinson (72) ó Cheek 30, Koerner 11, Bernal 6, Peay 6, Lloyd 6, Cook 6, Kacan 5,Eklund 2, Uttecht, Clark, Smith, Trammell.east rowan (37) ó Honeycutt 10, Vanderford 8, File 4, Drew 4, Dunlap 4, Corpening 3, Holshouser 2, Means 2, Sabo, B. Boling.
Robinson 18 16 20 18 ó 72
E. Rowan 8 9 11 9 ó 37