From staff reports

MOUNT ULLA — South Rowan’s girls basketball coach Alex Allen’s scorebook was very neat, virtually unmarked on Monday.

That wasn’t a good thing. Blame the fact that the Raiders were playing West Rowan for the fourth time.

Not unexpectedly, the game was a lot like the previous three. The Falcons beat the Raiders 82-15 in a first-round game in the South Piedmont Conference Tournament.

The earlier meetings between the top-seeded Falcons and Raiders had been 72-24 in the Christmas tournament, 81-21 at South and 105-23 at West.

Eighth-seeded South (5-19) ended the season.

West is bigger, faster and more experienced than South and has a good chance to win its second straight 3A championship. West (23-1) has won 54 of its last 55 games, as head coach Ashley Poole closes in on her 200th career victory. She has 198.

West got 20 points from Lauren Arnold, 16 each from Tiara Thompson and 11 each from De’Mya Phifer and Mya Edwards.

It was over after the first quarter. At that point, the Falcons led 38-3. It was 61-11 at the half.

Kynlee Dextraze scored seven to lead the Raiders.

West plays in a 7:30 Tuesday semifinal at Concord against No. 4 seed Central Cabarrus. The Vikings survived a thriller with East Rowan.

South      3     8       2    2    — 15

West      38     23   10  11  —  82

SOUTH — Dextraze 7, Alston 5, Carter 2, Morgan 1.

WEST — Arnold 20, Thompson 16, Edwards 11, Phifer 11, Martin 8, Clarke 6, Wilson 6, Tenor 4.

•••

SALISBURY — Salisbury’s girls basketball team pitched a first-quarter shutout, built a 41-0 lead in the second quarter and routed Thomasville 75-13 on Monday in the first round of the 1A/2A Central Carolina Conference Tournament.

The second-seeded Hornets had beaten the Bulldogs by football scores — 63-0 and 54-7 — during the regular season.

The seventh-seeded Bulldogs (1-21) displayed a bit more offense but were unable to shock the world in the third meeting. A 5-0 run to close the first half to cut Salisbury’s lead to 47-8 had to be one of the highlights of the season for the Bulldogs.

MaKayla Noble opened the scoring with a  3-pointer for the Hornets and had 14 points in the book by halftime. She sat down early with 19.

The Hornets got 11 points from Shamya Arnold, nine from Torese Evans, eight from Keiara Spruill and seven from Mariana Zapata and Taliyah McCombs.

Eleven different Hornets scored.

Salisbury (17-6) is 12th in the 2A West RPI rankings.

Next for the Hornets is a 6 p.m. Thursday semifinal at Thomasville against third-seeded East Davidson.

Thomasville      0     8     1     4    — 13

Salisbury         22     25    20   8   — 75

SALISBURY — Noble 19, Arnold 11, Evans 9, Spruill 8, Zapata 7, McCombs 7, Cherry 5, Myers 3, Pearson-Hasty 2, Peeler 2, McNeely 2.

•••

CONCORD — East Rowan’s girls basketball team woke up on Tuesday morning 32nd in the 3A West RPI rankings and are in danger of missing the 3A state playoffs.

The Mustangs had every chance in the world to improve their position on Monday night but couldn’t pull out a defensive struggle at Central Cabarrus in the first round of the South Piedmont Conference Tournament.

The fourth-seeded Vikings beat the fifth-seeded Mustangs 36-33. Central (15-10) beat East (12-12) for the third time. The last two meetings could have gone either way.

Central’s aggressive man-to-man defense disrupted East in the early stages of the game, and the Vikings got to the foul line often enough to take a 9-4 lead.

The second quarter was more of the same grind. Both teams struggled to score. Central took a 14-10 lead to halftime.

When Daniyah Burton scored on an offensive rebound and off a turnover and Kyra Lewis powered for a three-point play, the Vikings led 21-10 early in the third quarter, and East was in serious trouble, but that’s when Mary Church took over.

East scored 10 in the quarter. Church scored all 10, making the Mustangs’ only 3-pointer of the night, but mostly by driving. Central led 23-20 going to a wild fourth quarter.

East got the first hoop of the fourth quarter — Hannah Waddell made a nice pass to Kady Collins — and Central’s lead was down to one point.

It stayed 23-22 for at least three minutes, but East just couldn’t take the lead. Church finally made a free throw for 23-all, the game’s first tie since 2-all.

Lewis answered with a critical bucket to end a long Central drought. That put the Vikings up 25-23 with 3:50 left.

East never got even again.

Central led 31-30 with a minute left after Waddell made a shot in the lane. Waddell got East within one again at 33-32 with 19 seconds left with two free throws, but Jahnae Duncan made two clutch free throws with 15 seconds left to put Central back ahead by three.

Church had a decent look at a 3-pointer from the left side to tie, but missed and Central grabbed the rebound. Burton made a free throw with four seconds left for the final four-point margin.

Church scored 20 of East’s 32 despite some hard-working defense by Laila Pickett, while Waddell had eight.

Duncan scored 12 and Burton had 11 to lead the Vikings, who advanced to a semifinal game with top-seeded West Rowan.

East       4     6     10    12    — 32

Central   9     5     9    13     — 36

EAST — Church 20, Waddell 8, Collins 2, Kluttz 2.

CENTRAL — Duncan 12, Burton 11, Lewis 6, Blanchard 3, Martin 2, Pickett 2.

•••

CONCORD — Third-seeded Cox Mill’s girls basketball team beat A.L. Brown 58-50 on Monday in an exciting first-round game in the Greater Metro Conference Tournament.

The sixth-seeded Wonders (11-14) got 22 points from Sadie Faulkner, 19 from Ayanni Flood and nine from Jae’nae Stevens, but only three girls scored.

Cox Mill (13-11) advanced to a semifinal meeting with second-seeded Hickory Ridge in a game that will be played at Mooresville.

A.L. Brown is 39th in the 4A West RPI rankings, so this is expected to be a season-ending loss.

A.L. Brown   12 10   12 16 —  50

Cox Mill        13  15  18  12  — 58