Defensive Senators rebound to defeat South Tahoe
Dave Price
Coming off a tough loss the night before at North Valleys, the Carson High School boys basketball team was in a hurry to redeem itself on Saturday. The Senators even showed up early to get in some extra practice early in the afternoon, then took the floor and proceeded to run off a 69-28 victory at home against South Tahoe.
Carson raced to an 18-1 first quarter lead and never looked back en route to the Sierra League victory at Morse Burley Gymnasium. Not surprising, the previous night's 62-55 defeat against North Valleys in Reno serve as a motivation for the Senators, who improved their league record to 1-2 (9-9 overall).
"We came out here earlier today and walked through some things, then we talked before the game about playing at home and that we needed to get back on track," Carson coach Bruce Barnes said. "The kids came out focused and they executed right from the start.
The Senators certainly executed on the defensive end against a South Tahoe team that is now 0-4 in league (4-12 overall), but had played well in a 64-56 loss at home against Douglas on Friday.
"They (Carson) played well, we played poorly," Vikings coach Derek Allister said. "This is without question the worst we've played all season, but you have to give them credit. They really rose up and really competed. They're very good defensively; Bruce Barnes always does a very good job, so we knew we would have to execute on offense, and we just didn't get any good looks the first four or five minutes."
Meanwhile, Carson converted 7 of 8 free throws, Rory Wunsch buried a 3-pointer and Kyle Bacon fed Jason Alcasas for a layup to make it 12-0. Matt Poe put South Tahoe on the scoreboard when he converted the second of two free throws with 2:12 left in the first quarter, but the Vikings were never given an opportunity to mount any momentum. Instead, Tsuyoshi Curtis came up with three quick steals, one of which he turned into a layup and another led to a Drew Anderson layup as Carson extended its lead to 16-1.
"We executed our defense about as well as you possibly can," Barnes said.
Ten players reached the score column for Carson, led by Jason Alcasas with a game-high 19 points. Rory Wunsch also contributed nine points, including a pair of 3 balls, Curtis had eight, Hurzel seven and 6-foot-5 sophomore Harith Shakir six. The Senators shot a solid 21-for-29 from the free throw line.
South Tahoe was led by 6-5 sophomore Jared Wood with nine points and Dan Tobin with six.
"Hopefully, our kids will bounce back," said Allister, whose Vikings play host to North Valleys at home on Tuesday. "And I'm sure they will. We have tough kids."
Carson has three league games on the schedule this week. The Senators entertain Wooster on Tuesday, then visit Reno on Friday and return home to play arch rival Douglas on Saturday.
