There was no letdown this time around. On Tuesday against Sparks, Carson, which had a 16-point lead in the third quarter, allowed the Railroaders back into the game, before eventually derailing them in double overtime.
But on Friday night against Elko, the Senators got up early, aided by their outside shooting, then played stifling defense, and went on to a 75-56 win at Carson High.
"That makes everything a whole lot easier when those shots go down," said Carson coach Bruce Barnes. "But we're an outside shooting team and our shooting made it easy on us tonight."
The Carson guard trio of Jeffrey Young, Ryan Buttner, and Vincent Reymus were a combined 8-of-11 from behind the arc, including Reymus, who made all four of his 3-point attempts. His back-to-back 3-pointers to start the game put the Senators up 6-0 less than 30 seconds into the game.
Carson, which led 20-11 after the first quarter, forced 14 Elko turnovers while holding the Indians to only nine shots in the opening quarter. Reymus, who finished the game with five assists and three steals, scored nine of his 18 points in the first quarter. Six different Senators had at least two steals.
"We knew they were young and more of an inside team, so we wanted to pressure their guards," Barnes said. "If they were more of a perimeter team, than we would've had to adjust."
In the second quarter, Elko cut Carson's lead to 21-15. But after a Reymus jumper and a pair of Buttner free throws, the Senators were back up by nine. The Indians never got any closer than nine points the rest of the game.
Up 63-41 at the start of the fourth quarter, and with most of the Senator bench playing, Elko tried to make a late run. But after Dusty Inman's 3-pointer with 5:01 to play, which cut Carson's lead to 65-48, Barnes put his starters back in.
"It's important to play as many guys as we can because down the road, we're going to need to go 9-10 deep," Barnes said. "I have a good idea of our top eight players but you need we need more of a rotation than that."
Inman, who led Elko with 19 points, was a player Barnes knew his team had to stop.
"He's (Inman) a great player, an all-league player," Barnes said. "We knew that if we could stop him, we'd have a good chance to win. And for the most part we did."
After the Indians attempt to cut into the Senators lead, Cody Longero then scored six of Carson's final eight points to seal the victory. Longero, who scored 24 points in Carson's 80-72 win over Sparks, had a game-high 20 points against Elko, including eight rebounds and four assists. Buttner finished with 17 points. Megdy Khoury was the only other Elko player in double figures, finishing with 10 points.
