Manogue shoots way past Carson girls

RENO - Trying to defend Bishop Manogue's girls basketball team is something you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

The Miners can hurt you in so many ways. They have the inside game with Katie Gray and Talia Jim and an outside presence with Kelly Lujan, Gabbi Concepcion and Amy Yeager.

The Miners played their inside-out game to perfection, shooting 55 percent from the floor en route to a 73-48 thumping of Carson Tuesday night in a Sierra League game.

Carson, which already has a playoff spot clinched, dropped to 8-7. The Senators will play at Reno next week in the opening round of the playoffs.

"We didn't play bad," Carson coach Todd Ackerman said. "They shot the ball well. The problem is helping defensively. Everytime we left (Amy) Yeager alone to help on somebody, she'd bury the shot."

The fourth quarter was especially painful, as Carson was outscored 14-4. The Senators seemed listless in the final eight minutes.

Ackerman admitted when his team, despite playing well offensively for the first three quarters, was unable to cut into the Miners' lead that the intensity level dropped a bit.

"That's a pretty good Carson team," Manogue coach Craig Holt said. "I wouldn't be surprised to see them beat a team in the playoffs. They outhustled us in the first half. We were able to respond in the third quarter."

Carson played a stout first half, but still trailed 36-29 after the first 16 minutes thanks to some poor transition defense and a 14-for-26 shooting effort from the floor by the Miners.

Carson, which trailed 17-10 late in the first quarter, cut the lead to three on three occasions in the second quarter, 24-21, 26-23 and 30-27, behind the offensive play of Eliza Matley and Savannah Smith, who combined for 13 of the Senators' 17 points in the second quarter.

A three-point play and 3-pointer by Smith in a 38-second span made it 24-21. The Miners responded with Natalie Hinojosa scoring six straight for the Miners to make it 30-23.

Matley, who had 10 in the first half, scored two straight buckets to slice it to 30-27. Matley went 4-for-6 from the floor in the first half, including 3-for-4 in the second quarter.

"Eliza shot it really well, except maybe in the fourth quarter" Ackerman said. "She did a nice job using the glass.''

Manogue scored six straight to make it 36-27 before Lisa Yamamoto made it 36-29.

The little bit of momentum that Carson captured in the second quarter disappeared quickly in the second half.

Manogue quickly stretched the lead to 15 points, scoring eight straight to open the second half. Concepcion opened with a 3-pointer, Jim scored on the inside and Yeager drained a 3-pointer to make it 44-29.

Carson got it inside double-digits, 46-37, thanks to a basket and free throw by Matley, a 3-pointer by Whitney Nash (15 points) and a bucket by Yamamoto.

However, the Miners went on an 11-3 run to get the lead to 57-40 with less than two minutes left in the period. Yeager started the surge with a 3-pointer, Gray drove uncontested for two layups and Concepcion scored twice.

Carson never got closer than 17 the remainder of the game in part because it went 0-for-9 from the field to open the final period.