Carson tunes up for tough stretch

Carson High’s basketball team shouldn’t take long celebrating its easy 56-27 win over cellar-dwelling Wooster Friday night at Morse Burley Gym.

The reason is simple.

The real season starts next week when the Senators, 6-2 in league and 9-6 overall, face Galena (away on Tuesday), Bishop Manogue (home on Friday) and Douglas (away on Jan. 27). Those three games will go a long way in determining Carson’s fate this year.

“Galena is a talented team,” Carson coach Carlos Mendeguia said. “They are returning league champs and that’s where we want to be (at the top). They have everybody back from last year’s team including the top player. Bishop Manogue is playing very well. Coach (Ralph) Fields has done an outstanding job.

“We’re showing flashes of brilliance, but we need to get better. We need to get physical. We’ve been working with our inside players on getting to the basket. Against the top teams every possession is important. Our inside game (offensively) needs to get better.”

Senior Cameron Price has yet to play up to last year’s standards, Ian Schulz has shown flashes of brilliance offensively, and Tez Allen and Jayden DeJoseph have been up and down, which is expected of sophomores. DeJoseph did have one of his better scoring games against Wooster, however, finishing with 13 points. Asa Carter, as usual, led Carson with 16 points.

DeJoseph had six of Carson’s first 14 points on Friday, and then scored seven straight to start the fourth quarter which helped Carson to a 45-25 lead with 5:10 remaining.

“We have a lot of depth on this team, and it’s hard for me to get looks all the time,” DeJoseph said after the game. “I’ve been doing better. I’m still making some small mistakes. I need to make adjustments.

“The team is playing pretty good. We’ve gotten some quality wins. We need to keep it going.”

And, Mendeguia said DeJoseph’s play inside and outside is critical to any long-term success this year.

“Jayden is a talented player,” Mendeguia said. “He’s got a good inside-out game. He needs to play more with a chip on his shoulder. He got 13, but it was a quiet 13 in my opinion. I think he could have had 20.

“He got complacent. He got lost in the 1-3-1. We knew they would use a lot of zone against us. We knew they wouldn’t play much man against us. Once Jayden got comfortable (in the second half) he got some easy buckets and got going again.”

DeJoseph’s early offense helped Carson to a 16-5 lead with 7:17 left in the half.

The rest of the half, however, the Senators didn’t execute period.

After gaining the 11-point lead, the Senators went 4-for-9 from the floor and turned the ball over six times in that stretch. Against a good team that lead would have been gone, but Wooster isn’t a good team. The Colts did go 4-for-6 from the floor in the quarter, but six turnovers cost them a chance to cut more than two points off the CHS lead by the half. The Colts did draw to 22-18, but a 3-pointer by Carter and a lay-up by Jared Rooker made it 27-19 at the intermission.

The Senators kept it going with a 6-0 run to start the second half en route to a 33-18 lead with 4:35 remaining.

Price, who came off the bench, started the surge with a basket, and then Carter converted his steal into a lay-up and then knocked in two technical free throws after Wooster’s Myster Smith slammed the ball down after a turnover.

A 10-2 start to the fourth quarter upped Carson’s lead to 48-25. DeJoseph had seven straight in that barage.

Carson takes its four-game win streak into Galena Tuesday night.

“It’s going to be tough,” DeJoseph said.

“They are going to pressure us, and we have to be able to handle their pressure.”