Carson High's girls basketball team ended its season last week by losing to Spanish Springs in the opening round of the playoffs, 53-45.
It was a successful season for first-year coach Nathan Tolbert and his staff. Carson finished in second place in the Sierra League, and let's face it, nobody was going to beat Bishop Manogue this season, at least among the other Sierra League schools.
The team loses Maddi Saarem, who was a solid rebounder and good defender, fiery Elena Thurman and Jasmine Flores, who saw spot duty.
Everybody else is back, including Savannah Smith, who is candidate for Sierra League Player of the Year honors in 2014. In my opinion, Smith is too unselfish. She needs to look to score more often, especially from the outside.
Tolbert has some head cases on the team, however, and without mentioning names, he needs to have a "Come to Jesus Meeting" with them and see if they want to remain on the team. Some players, no matter how talented, are just not worth the trouble because of their attitudes.
I hope Tolbert gets tougher with this group next year. I got tired of seeing and hearing players whine when they were pulled out of a game. These girls need to look in the mirror and do some self evaluation. Most of them are good athletes, but in many cases they aren't as good as they think they are.
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I applaud Carlos Mendeguia's decision to put money from his own budget or own wallet to help some students attend Saturday night's championship game against Hug.
Whether it helped or not we'll never know, but athletes at any level will tell you that playing in front of full house helps them a lot.
Mendeguia questioned where the NIAA comes up with the figure of a $5 entry fee for playoff games. I see nothing wrong with charging kids to get into the games, but what's wrong with $2 or even $3? People certainly aren't made of money these days, and lower entrance fees would enable more kids to go to the games.
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One thing I didn't understand was the NIAA's decision to not flip-flop the start times for Thursday's playoff opener. The NIAA gets all gate receipts from playoff games, so you would think that body would want to make more money, and trust me the NIAA would have made more money if Carson had played at 7 p.m. instead of 5.
When I talked to an NIAA official; about it, he pointed out that starting the Hug-Galena game at 5 would have meant that many of their fans might not have been able to attend because the games were in Carson and not Reno somewhere. No offense, but Hug doesn't usually draw a ton of fans anyway, and schools like Douglas and Carson always get a raw deal because more often than not the playoffs are in Reno.
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Once and for all, Carson High has the best facility to host a basketball or wrestling tournament, and it's not even close. At Carson, no matter where you sit, you feel you're on top of the action.
Spanish Springs and Damonte were built to be regional playoff sites, but neither has any advantage over Carson.
The lights for soccer or football at Damonte aren't great, and they don't have good warm-up areas for track events.
At Spanish Springs, which has more seating capacity than Morse Burley, the seating goes well past the end line which makes you feel you're in outer Mongolia if you get stuck sitting there. Spanish Springs would have been better served if it had bleachers behind each basket.
Carson has the upper seating which is where the bands are located. It also has room to stand in back of the bleachers on one side. Back in 2003 when Carson hosted the event, it was standing room only. The crowd on Thursday was decent, but not great. I attribute that to Douglas getting knocked out of the tournament in the first round.
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And last but not least, congratulations go to Carson football player Logan Krupp, who has been invited to walk on at Division II Western Oregon University.
Krupp, a wide receiver and defensive end for coach Blair Roman the past two years, signed an institutional letter-of-intent last week.
Krupp attended a football camp at Western Oregon, and won an award for his defensive play there.
Krupp will join Dayton's Josh Joyner at WOU. The two may even room together next season.
WOU is looking at Krupp as an outside linebacker. One thing is certain, Krupp needs to put on more weight to be effective at the next level.
