Staff report

HIGH POINT — A 59-50 loss to Northern Guilford on Saturday meant the first 0-2 start for Salisbury’s girls basketball team since November 2014.

Not that head coach Lakai Brice, who was around for that 2014-15 season, is panicking.

She knows it’s mostly a new group of Hornets without Kyla Bryant, Mary Morgan, Haley Dalton and Icesis Nwafor, and she knows most teams would be 0-2 after playing the two teams Salisbury played in the Headliners Challenge at Wesleyan Christian.

“Saturday’s game was a really good game and we played well, but we’ve got to learn how to finish,” Brice said. “We’re down one with 1:30 to go, turned it over three times and they scored three times. We had two starters in foul trouble, but everyone who came into the game responded and did well. We’ll get better. We’ll get to where we can close out games.”

The Hornets started fast, but a big second quarter gave Northern Guilford a 29-28 halftime lead.

MaKayla Noble poured in a career-high 26 for the Hornets. Jamyrah Cherry was one of the girls in foul trouble, but she scored 11. Shamya Arnold had eight.

It was the season opener for the 4A Nighthawks, who got 19 points from Cara Trippett and 17 from freshman Leena McField.

Noethern Guilford only shot 34 percent, but was 9-for-11 on free throws and made six 3-pointers.

 

Salisbury      16    12    11    11   — 50

N. Guilford  9        20  12   18  — 59

Salisbury — Noble 26, Cherry 11, Arnold 8, Zapata 3, Spruill 2.

N. Guilford — Trippett 19, McField 17, Newsome 8, DeLisa 6, Bayer 3, Greeson 2, Harris 2, Ball 2.