Hickory High's girls executed a near-perfect offense and a smothering defense on Tuesday night to build an early 16-point lead and beat Fred T. Foard 91-47.
By winning, the visiting Red Tornadoes (17-2, 6-1) set up a showdown on Thursday night at Hickory with South Caldwell (16-1, 7-0), which leads the Northwestern 3A-4A race.
Fred T. Foard dropped to 9-10 overall and 2-5 in the conference with its seventh loss in eight games.
After Foard's Brooke Robinson and Tonya Propst hit shots to give the Tigers a 4-0 lead, the Red Tornadoes scored 12 straight points — by five different players — and forced turnovers on five straight Tigers possessions.
Robinson broke up the streak with a jumper and Carissa Young hit two free throws to get the Tigers within 12-8. Hickory then went on a 15-3 run over the final four minutes to close out the half.
The Red Tornadoes forced 15 turnovers in the first quarter, including eight steals, and Foard has 34 turnovers overall.
Offensively, Hickory hit 12 of 18 shots in the first quarter. Nine of those came with an assists, both on fast breaks and in halfcourt sets.
"I think the defensive pressure was very good, which creates the turnovers," said Hickory head coach Barbara Helms. "But I like the way we moved the ball.
"We had a lot of people touching the ball, which is what we talked about in the locker room.
"We had an inside game and we had an outside gamer where we didn't have to shoot from very far out."
Hickory continued to be content working for layups or short jumpers, taking only seven 3-pointers and making three.
The Red Tornadoes shot 54.5 percent and finished with 22 assists, led by five from center Andrea Miller.
Hillary Sigmon scored 10 points in the first quarter for Hickory and added three rebounds, four steals, and three assists. She played with foul trouble for most of the remainder of the game after picking up her second early in the second quarter.
Hickory made up for Sigmon's absence by building a 49-21 halftime lead with six players scoring in the second quarter, led by Paige Colbert's six points.
"We had a lot of people pick some things up," said Helms. "When we were subbing in and out, there wasn't a lot of difference in momentum.
"We would have three or four touches on the ball, which is very hard to defend."
"I thought we finished strong," Helms said. "That's something we've been harping on in practice.
"We don't want to let anyone slip up on you. Even with a lot of people rotating in and out when kept that momentum strong.
Hickory's Jada Payne led all scorers with 21 points to go with eight steals, while Sigmon finished with 18 points. Shannon Brown also had 18 points, with nine in the fourth quarter and seven rebounds.
Kendall Settlelmyre led the Tigers with 12 points and Propst added 11.
HICKORY 76, FRED T. FOARD 42
The first-place Hickory boys struggled to a 31-24 lead against last-place Foard.
But with 5:30 in the third quarter, Tyler Poole had six points to help the Red Tornadoes (16-2, 7-0) inch away with a 14-6 run to close the quarter.
Hickory then had eight players score in the final quarter to blast the Tigers 31-12.
Poole finished with 15 points, with Jerry Schenck adding 14 points for the Red Tornadoes.
Jameel Owens (12 points) and Alex Tomberlin (10 points) each scored in double figures for Foard (2-16, 0-7).
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