Paul Cagle III couldn't have picked a better time for his first-ever game-winning basket at Carson High School.
Cagle took a nice pass from senior point guard Matt Rutledge and dropped in
a 3-pointer from 20 feet with 0.2 seconds left to snap a 48-all tie and give
the Senators a 51-48 win over arch-rival Douglas Tuesday at Morse Burley
Gymnasium.
"It felt good. It went in," said Cagle, who finished with 17 points. "It was
really all Matt. He did a great job getting into the lane and getting the
defenders to him to get me an open shot. It's the first one (game-winner) at
Carson. That it was against Douglas made it twice as nice."
"I thought it was down (on the release)," Carson coach Bruce Barnes said.
"He's as good a 3-point shooter as we have."
The win snapped Carson's three-game losing streak and put the Senators at
10-8 overall and 4-3 at the end of the first half of the Sierra League
season. Douglas dropped to 3-4 in league.
Douglas had put together a 9-2 run, tying the game at 48 with 1:27 remaining. That's when Barnes decided to play for the last shot, although he called timeout with 27.9 left.
"We thought they were going to play man, but they came out in a 1-2-2,"
Barnes said. "We had to switch to a zone set play. We were kind of running
around. Matt did a good job of penetrating and drawing the defenders to him.
"I took the timeout to settle them (the team) down. It (1:27) is a lot of
time to take off the clock. Brian (Barnes), Paul and Matt are the only ones
that are comfortable in that atmosphere."
Barnes' strategy didn't surprise Douglas coach Corey Thacker.
"It's their type of game," Thacker said. "They controlled the tempo the entire time. We switched to zone. We didn't get a hand up to contest the shot. He made a great shot."
The first half was hotly contested, as the teams were separated by no more than four points the entire first half.
Patrick Smith scored six of his nine in the opening half. His first two buckets trimmed Douglas' lead to 15-13 after one quarter. His final bucket of the first half tied the game at 19.
"Patrick was active," Barnes said. "He had a nice first half. Uriel was better in the first half. I thought we got great production in the post. That's the key to winning games."
Douglas used baskets by Austin Neddenriep and Tim Rudnick plus two free
throws by Nick Hales to pull ahead 29-27 with 5:28 left in the third quarter.
Carson got five points from Duran, three from Smith and four from Barnes in
a 14-5 run that gave the Senators a 41-34 lead after three.
That set the stage for a big fourth quarter by the Tigers' Rudnick, who scored 10 of his team-high 16 points.
Rudnick's three-point play cut Carson¹s lead to 42-39, but a hook shot by Cagle and a layup by Uriel Duran made it 46-39. Rudnick converted a Carson turnover into a layup at the other end, and Parker Robertson's blocked shot was turned into two free throws by James McLaughlin, which made it 46-43.
After two Carson turnovers, Rudnick's second three-point play of the quarter, tied the game at 46.
"We started attacking the basket and getting to the foul line," Thacker said. "The first three quarters we only got to the line six times and we got to the line seven times in the final quarter. He (Rudnick) is good at attacking the rim."
