Thomas Smith

Staff Reporter

The Mount Airy girls came out of the gate strong last night and never looked back, defeating the visiting East Wilkes Cardinals, 51-36.

The victory gives the Granite Bears seven conference wins, putting them in position to leap frog East Wilkes for third place in the Northwest 1-A girls standings.

The Bears rode a balanced scoring attack, with three players finishing in double figures, while allowing no East Wilkes player to break that mark.

Junior Andria Leonard lead the way with 12 points for Mount Airy, followed by Maggie McKee and Taylor Hiatt with 10 points each. Lauren Royal led East Wilkes with 9 points before fouling out in the fourth quarter, followed by Makayla Sales with 7 points and Anna Hayes with 6.

Mount Airy coach Howard Mayo said he was pleased with his teams’ overall performance and said he felt the Bears showed a high level of intensity from start to finish.

“I think it goes to show you how we’ve grown as a team and that we are getting better,” Mayo said. “We’re not satisfied and we want to see improvement throughout the year. They are a good ball team. I mean they’ve only lost five in the conference. They are well coached and they play hard.”

The most telling statistic of the game came from the free throw line, with Mount Airy finishing a nearly perfect 18 of 20, including shooting 12 of 12 from the line in the fourth quarter. East Wilkes finished 6 of 11 from the line.

Mayo said the free throw shooting and strong defense in the second half showed his team was not willing to allow the Cardinals back into the game.

“I thought we just dug down and said, ‘We are not going to give this game away,’ and it started at the free throw line,” Mayo said. “We were able to sustain the lead instead of them cutting into it and that’s helpful. I thought we closed the game out very well.”

Mount Airy led 22-13 at the half but both teams struggled to get going offensively after the break, combining for just 15 third quarter points.

The Bears picked up the pace however, using an 11-3 run to start the fourth quarter to spread their lead into double digits, leading by as much as 18.

With Mount Airy shooting perfect at the line, East Wilkes was unable to gain any momentum to cut into the lead, giving the Bears the all important victory.

Mount Airy’s Taylor Hiatt, who put together a very solid all-around performance for the Bears, said she and her teammates desperately wanted the win over East Wilkes after losing to the Cardinals earlier this season on the road.

“I was ready for it, I wanted to beat them so bad and I am so glad that we did,” Hiatt said. “We knew we didn’t play up to our potential the last time we played them, so we knew we had to do better to prove how good we were.”

Mount Airy improves to 13-5 overall and 7-3 in conference play, with East Wilkes falling to 14-5 overall and 8-5 in conference play.

Bears struggle in win

Things did not go as smoothly for the Mount Airy boys however, with the Bears finding their hands full with a surprisingly adept East Wilkes team, pulling out the 55-50 win after trailing in the first half.

Mount Airy coach Kevin Spainhour said his team struggled throughout the night offensively. He credited East Wilkes defense for causing the Bears’ problems.

“We just had trouble scoring all night,” Spainhour said. “East Wilkes did a fabulous job of cutting down our penetration lanes and just kind of kept us off balance all night offensively. Typically if we defend a team and hold them to 50 points this year we do well. We are averaging over 70 a game, so with a game like tonight, it was really more our offense than our defense.”

East Wilkes came out strong, holding to a 18-11 to the end the first quarter.

Mount Airy continued to struggle and were down 27-21 just before the break when the Bears went on a 9-0 run to end the half and take the lead 30-27.

Wade Moody led the charge for the Bears, scoring 13 of his game-high 27 points in the all important second quarter.

The Bears would never trail in the second half, but picked up huge free throws late in the fourth quarter from seniors E.J. Valentine and Dillon Bobbitt to seal the win.

Behind Moody for the Bears was Bobbitt with 8 points and Robbie Rives with 7 points.

Ethan Lyon led East Wilkes with 21 points, including 5 3-pointers on the night.

Spainhour said it was good for the Bears to gain late game experience, but that he was not happy with the way his team played overall, putting much of the blame on himself.

“I told our guys at half time when we were up by three, we really had no business being up,” Spainhour said. “But it goes to show you the type of team we are to be able to play so poorly and squeeze out a win. For us to be in those situations is a good thing, but it is unfortunate we were in that situation because we played poorly. I didn’t do a good enough job having my team ready to play tonight.”

Spainhour said he felt his team was not completely focused on the task at hand, saying he did not think the Bears gained experience from a poor showing at Elkin before a loss to Winston-Salem Prep this weekend.

“We’ve had back to back weeks where we played and Elkin team that has struggled right before we played Winston-Salem Prep and we didn’t play well against Elkin,” he said. “Then we have tonight’s game right before North Stokes tomorrow and the unfortunate thing is I don’t think we learned from the prep experience tonight. It’s not we were overlooking our opponent, our focus wasn’t there, our intensity wasn’t there and the speed with which we normally play wasn’t there tonight.”

With the win Mount Airy improves to 15-3 overall and 9-1 in the Northwest 1-A Conference, while East Wilkes falls to 3-16 overall and 2-11 in conference play.

Mount Airy will host North Stokes tonight, with the junior varsity beginning at 4 p.m.

Girls Game

MOUNT AIRY 51,

EAST WILKES 36

Mount Airy 11 11 8 21 —51

East Wilkes 9 6 7 14 — 36

Mount Airy — Andria Leonard 12, Maggie McKee 10, Taylor Hiatt 10, J. Hiatt 9, Case 8, S. Williams 2

East Wilkes — Lauren Royal 9, Makayla Sales 7, Hayes 6, Prevette 5, Elmore 4, Grit 3, Diorio 2

Boys Game

MOUNT AIRY 55,

EAST WILKES 50

Mount Airy 11 19 12 13 — 55

East Wilkes 18 9 7 16 — 50

Mount Airy — Wade Moody 27, Bobbit 8, Harris 3, Hamilton 4, Valentine 4, Rives 7, Joyce 2

East Wilkes — Ethan Lyon 21, Bryan 9, Tharpe 8, Vannoy 7, Prevette 3, Billings 2