This was one for the defense.
Carson High's boys basketball team held South Tahoe to just a single three-point field goal in the first six-plus minutes of the fourth quarter, as the Senators stayed alive in the playoff chase with a 58-44 win before a large homecoming crowd Friday night at Morse Burley Gymnasium.
The win boosted Carson to 4-5 in Sierra League play with games left against Wooster (tonight at 5 at home), Reno on the road Tuesday and Douglas at home on Saturday. Carson leads North Valleys and Douglas by a half game.
"I think we won it on the defensive end," Carson coach Bruce Barnes said. "We did a great job on (Casey) Curcie."
Curcie scored 11, but he went seven minutes in the second half between points, and that's a killer when you consider he and Jared Wood (19 points) are the team's best outside shooters. Wood also went quiet down the stretch. He had two threes in the second half, both coming in the third quarter when South Tahoe wiped out a 10-point halftime deficit and took a 36-34 lead with 1:49 left in the third quarter.
A free throw by Brice Crook and two by Jake Jeffers (8 points) enabled the Senators to stop the bleeding and take a 37-36 lead after three.
The fourth quarter turned into the Brian Welch Show. He scored seven of his 10 points in the first six minutes of the final quarter, igniting a 13-3 run that gave Carson a 50-39 lead with 1:54 left in the game.
All the points came on fearless drives to the basket. It got him out of the doghouse, as he missed several minutes in the third quarter after picking up his third foul two minutes into the second half.
"We stopped doing the things we needed to do," South Tahoe coach Derek Allister said. "We weren't punching the ball inside with passes or on the dribble and then kicking the ball back out. That's when we play our best."
There was a key sequence during that big run. Leading 46-39 with less than four minutes left, Carson started to spread the floor, needing only to be fouled once to get into the bonus. Three times during that possession, Carson was able to recover loose balls, and Kevin Brush made it pay off when he scored on a lay-up with 2:43 to make it 48-39.
"The North Valleys game, we got beat on every loose ball," Barnes said. "Tonight that didn't happen.
"We got some easy baskets in the fourth quarter. They extended their press a little."
Carson used the outside shooting of Kyle Bacon (13 points) and the inside play of Jeffers to take a 30-20 lead at halftime.
Bacon threw down consecutive threes to give the Senators an early 13-10 lead. South Tahoe came back to take a 15-13 advantage, but Jeffers scored on three straight lay-ups for a 19-15 first-quarter edge.
"Kyle shot the ball well the first half," Barnes said. "Jeffers has been working hard in practice. He's a physical player, and tonight hopefully he learned something about what he can do we he does that,"
Despite shooting 33 percent in the second quarter, Carson was able to build its lead to the aforementioned 10 points, as Bacon hit a three from the right corner and drained a nice pull-up jump shot in a span of 37 seconds.
South Tahoe shot even worse, shooting 2 for 8 from the floor and turning the ball over five times.
South Tahoe went on a 13-2 run to open the second half, as Curcie and Wood each knocked a three and Daniel Tinlin snuck inside for a basket and two free throws.
"I think we defended very well in that stretch," Allister said. "They were a little flat, and I think we got our zone offense untracked. We were shredding their zone."
South Tahoe also beat Carson down the floor a couple of times much to Barnes' dismay.
"We talked about our guys getting offensive rebounds," Barnes said. "I can remember twice when nobody got back. One time was Brian (Welch). The other one I can't remember."
Darrell Moody can be reached at dmoody@nevadaappeal.com, or by calling (775) 881-1281
