Carson girls inconsistent in win

Carson High clinched second place and a home playoff game by virtue of its 41-28 win over Wooster Tuesday night at Morse Burley Gym.

Other than that, there wasn't much positive to take away from the contest.

• Carson turned the ball over 23 times.

• The Senators went 17-for-49 from the floor, including 8-for-28 in the first 16 minutes.

• Carson had two huge scoreless droughts - 6 minutes 6 seconds in the first half and a 5:13 stretch in the fourth quarter.

Not exactly how you want to be playing going into a game against your hated rival on Friday and the playoffs next week.

"There is some self doubt," Carson coach Nate Tolbert said after the game. "We're not playing the way we want to need to play. We've got to find a way to get ourselves together if we want to have some success in the playoffs. If we don't then it's going to be one and done. We need to be more consistent."

Had it not been for a good third quarter, the Senators would have been in some trouble because the plucky Colts hung in there the entire way.

Carson led 18-13 at the half despite going the first 6-plus minutes of the second quarter without scoring a point.

Whatever was said at halftime seemed to work.

The Senators, who scored the final seven points of the first half, went on a 10-2 run in the first 4:16 of the third quarter to take a 28-15 lead.

Carson got points from five different players in its surge. Elena Thurman scored the first three points, Jasmine Flores hit a short jump shot, Kayla Aikins added a free throw, Gina Peacock hit a layup and Maddi Saarem drained a shot in the key.

"We played with some intensity," Tolbert said. "We just stepped up and ran our man-to-man defense. We were giving them too much room in the first half."

Carson scored the first basket of the fourth quarter with 6:40 left in the game and didn't score again until 1:27 remained. In that span, Wooster scored six points to shave the lead down to 11 at 35-24.

Carson didn't have a scorer in double figures. Savannah Smith got in foul trouble and led the way with seven, while Peacock finished with six and Thurman with five.