By Bill Kiser
sports@salisburypost.com
MOORESVILLE ó South Rowan showed two difference faces during Friday night’s game against Lake Norman.
That, in a nutshell, was the deciding factor in the Raiders’ 91-63 North Piedmont Conference loss to the undefeated Wildcats.
John Davis scored a career-high 22 points and Hunter Morrison added 12 for South Rowan (8-8, 5-5), which remains in fourth place in the league standings despite losing its second straight.
But Reggie Price came off the bench to score 16 points for Lake Norman (15-0, 10-0), which had six players finish in double figures.
Matt Eller added 12 points, and four others ó Paul Larsen, Dorian Albritton, Matt Deynes and Frankie Kerr ó each had 11 points for the Wildcats.
The Raiders never led in Friday’s game, but they did manage to stick with league-leading Lake Norman in the first half by spreading the court out and setting up one-on-one matchups.
South shot 57.9 percent from the field in the first two quarters, and only trailed 39-29 at the break.
It was a different story in the second half, though ó the Raiders, already struggling with turnovers, also began strugging with their shot.
South hit just 10 of 31 (32.3 percent) from the field in the final two quarters, while the Wildcats shot better than 60 percent.
For the game, Lake Norman shot 55.7 percent from the field, including an incredible 75.7 percent on 2-point field goals.
The Wildcats also took advantage of South’s mistakes, converting 23 turnovers into 23 points. The Raiders, by comparison, scored just nine points off LN turnovers.
“We wanted to dictate the tempo of the game a little bit,” South Rowan head coach John Davis said. “We wanted to spread the court and see if we could get some guys out of position.
“But the problem was that we turned the ball over too many times … and against a good basketball team like Lake Norman, you can’t give them opportunities like that. You’ve got to make them earn everything they get.”
Despite the turnovers, the Raiders managed to pull within 39-31 on a John Davis runner in the opening seconds of the third quarter. But the Wildcats responded with nine unanswered points. Lake Norman then broke the game open with a 19-0 run. Price’s 3-pointer put the Wildcats ahead 67-37.
south ROWAN (63) ó Davis 22, Morrison 12, Grant 9, Walker 8, Houston 8, Shaver 4, Corriher, Bowles, Johnson. lake norman (91) ó Price 16, Eller 12, Albritton 11, Deynes 11, Kerr 11, Larsen 11, Smith 6, Canevari 4, Whalen 3, Mercer 3, Graham 2, Moffett 1, Weston, Saunders, Timmons.
S. Rowan 16 13 8 26 ó 63
L. Norman 23 16 22 30 ó 91