Dave Price
Even before their teams took the court Saturday night, opposing coaches Bruce Barnes and Keith Lewis knew free throws would be a determining factor when their respective Carson and Douglas high school boys basketball teams played.
Carson converted 16 of 23 shots from the line, and of more significance, the Senators were 10-for-12 in the fourth quarter on their way to a 57-50 victory at home against arch rival Douglas at Morse Burley Gymnasium.
Rory Wunsch scored 17 points, Kyle Bacon 15 and Jeffrey Hurzel 12 to lead Carson offensively in the Sierra League contest. Bacon scored seven in the fourth quarter, including 5-for-6 from the line. Hurzel shot 8-for-10 from the line and was 4-for-4 in the final period.
"We talked that," Barnes said. "As coaches and players, you have all these plays and you practice forever, but 80 percent of basketball games come down to that free throw line. As silly as it seems, if you make your shots at the free throw line, you have a very good chance to win."
Those words were echoed by Lewis, whose Tigers shot an impressive 8-for-9 from the line, but they never got to the line in the second half.
"We wrote it on the board before the game that the game would be decided at the line," Lewis said. "But it's hard to win close games when you don't get to the line."
The loss dropped Douglas (4-2 in league, 12-9 overall) out of a first-place tie with Reno and Hug in the league standings. Carson (3-3, 11-10) is one game behind in fourth-place after picking up what was obviously an important win.
"I think we came out and played hard," said Barnes, whose Senators were coming off a 49-40 loss at Reno the night before. "I'm glad to see them bounce back after the Reno game. If anything, they may have played a little harder, so at least that loss worked in a positive way.
"And it's always important to win whenever you're at home. We play well at home, as most teams do, so we just try and keep them focused on that and hopefully things will go our way."
The Senators had things going their way when they extended a 34-31 lead at the end of three quarters to a lead of as many as eight points early in the fourth. Primarily, they were able to spread the floor with a smaller lineup and force Douglas to bring 6-foot-9 freshman center Keith Olson to play defense out near midcourt on Adam Houghton, Carson's 6-foot sophomore center.
"Olson is obviously a post player, so we wanted to get him away from the basket," Barnes said. "His advantage is inside and our advantage is getting him trying to guard our guys away from the basket. That's why we put in Houghton and went real small. It was at a time when we needed to control the ball and get to the basket."
Wunsch took a pass from Brian Welch in the left corner and hit nothing but net on a rainbow 3-pointer that gave Carson a 41-35 lead with 5:53 remaining. Moments later, Wunsch converted a steal into a layup to make it 43-35. After Eric Emm hit an outside jumper and Anthony Walter scored on a layup for Douglas, Houghton took the ball out near midcourt, drove past Olson and went all the way for a layup to make it 45-39. Then Houghton stole the ball on the defensive end and Hurzel cashed in with a short baseline jumper as the Senators extended their lead to 47-39.
"I just thought we allowed Carson to dictate the tempo," Lewis said. "And we allowed them to get the lead. Once that happened, they were able to spread it out, and that's not a situation we want to be in."
There were still some anxious moments at the end.
Emm took a pass from Luke Rippee at the top of the key and buried a 3-pointer that would have been good from NBA range as the Tigers cut Carson's lead to 50-45 with 1:31 left to play. Then Chris Honer fired in a 3 ball from the left wing to make it 50-48 with 1:09 showing on the clock. That's as close as it would get, as Hurzel and Bacon combined to sink four straight free throws.
Olson finished with 18 points and 13 rebounds for Douglas. Emm also contributed 10 points and Walter nine for the Tigers, who came from behind late to beat Wooster in overtime on Friday.
"I was starting to wonder if we were going to pull out another close one. We knocked down some big shots at the end, but the bottom line was, Carson got us in a hole and we weren't able to dig our way out," Lewis said. "We just need to find a way to get out of the gate faster than we have been."
Carson returns to action Tuesday with a league game at home against Hug. Douglas plays again Friday against North Valleys in Reno.
"Tonight was important to restore some confidence going into Hug, especially since we didn't play so well up there last time," Barnes said, referring to Carson's 75-47 loss at Hug on Jan. 6. "It also gets us to .500 the first time through (end of the league's first round) and that's important."
