Tez Allen drives to the basket against North Valleys on Tuesday.
North Valleys was knocking at the door, and that’s when Ian Schulz stepped up.
Schulz scored six of his 10 points in the final 2-minutes 41-seconds of the third quarter to spark a 12-0 run and lead the Carson Senators to a 64-52 Division I crossover win Tuesday night at Morse Burley Gymnasium.
Carson played without Cameron Price, who was suspended for two games after being ejected in Saturday’s loss to Reno. The Senators are 3-2 in league and 6-6 overall heading into Friday’s road game at McQueen.
“We knew North Valleys was a scrappy team,” Carson coach Carlos Mendeguia said. “They had (Octavion) Corley who at 6-10 could give us problems inside and we knew (Tommy) McGuire could shoot it from the outside.
“We wanted to get off to a fast start which we did (14-4 early). Then we got lazy and let them back into it. This was probably Ian’s best game of the season. He’s finally starting to do things that we want him to do. He showed flashes of brilliance a couple of times.”
Corley dropped in two field goals and McGuire nailed one from the right corner to make it 33-29 Carson with a shade less than three minutes left in the third quarter.
Schulz scored on an inbounds play, and after Orion Claimon misfired, Asa Carter, who led all scorers with 18 points, knocked in two free throws to make it 37-29 with 2:24 left. After a North Valleys turnover, Schulz scored on another lay-up to get the lead to 39-29. Tez Allen turned in yet another North Valleys mistake into a basket, and then another bucket by Schulz and one by Jace Keema closed out the run and gave CHS a 45-29 advantage. The Panthers scored a bucket to shave it to 14 after three periods.
“We had been working on post moves all week,” Schulz said. “The coaches want me to be physical (and aggressive).”
Schulz probably played a little more than normal given Price’s absence.
“I don’t think it changed the way we played,” Schulz said. “It just changed the rotation.”
Mendeguia agreed, and it made more of a difference Tuesday than it’s going to make on Friday. North Valleys has a lot more size compared to McQueen, which is a guard oriented team.
Carson’s lead never got less than 10 points the remainder of the game. North Valleys did trim the lead to 11, 49-38, with 5:52 left in the game thanks to four points by Corley. Carter and Steele broke loose for lay-ups to make it 53-38 with 4:37 left.
From that point on, North Valleys had to foul to put Carson on the line, and the Senators, especially Allen, responded with an 11-for-14 effort in the final period. Allen went 8-for-10 at the line.
North Valleys led just once when it scored the first four points of the contest. Carson went on a 14-0 run led by Carter’s three field goals and a 3-pointer by Dilyn Rooker.
A 10-0 run to start the second quarter gave the Senators a 24-8 lead, but seven straight points by McGuire enabled the Panthers to make it 25-15 at the half. The teams essentially traded baskets for the first part of the third quarter before Schulz got on track.
