Carson boys roll against McQueen

Carson coach Carlos Mendeguia admitted he was worried prior to hosting McQueen Friday night at Morse Burley Gym.

He shouldn’t have been.

With Tez Allen and Jayden DeJoseph scoring 27 apiece, the Senators breezed to an easy 68-46 triumph in a 4A boys crossover game.

Carson improved to 4-2 heading into its Sierra League opener against Galena Tuesday at 7 at Morse Burley Gym.

“They are a scrappy team, and all five starters can put the ball on the floor and shoot,” Mendeguia said. “And, they are athletic and well coached.”

But the Lancers don’t have anybody as talented as Allen or DeJoseph, who had their way with the Lancers.

It was Carson’s defense that got its offense rolling. The Senators bolted to a 32-15 halftime lead, and 16 of those points came off McQueen mistakes.

“I was pleased with our half-court defense,” Mendeguia said. “We got into the passing lanes. We wanted to stop their cutters coming through the lane. I think we frustrated McQueen a little bit. We got a lot of easy transition baskets (because of our defense).”

The key was the second quarter, as Carson dominated at both ends of the floor, outscoring the Lancers, 18-4, en route to the aforementioned 17-point halftime lead. Carson had just three players score — Allen with 12, DeJoseph with 17 and Taylor Saarem drained a 3-pointer from the corner.

The Senators opened the quarter with a 10-0 run to take a 24-11 lead, as Allen and DeJoseph scored on lay-ups, Saarem scored from the corner and DeJoseph added a 3-pointer. After Kareem Rowe scored the Lancers’ only basket of the quarter, Carson went on an 8-0 run to increase its lead to 32-13. Allen started the surge with a free throw and DeJoseph followed a McQueen turnover with a steal and lay-up. After McQueen misfired, Allen converted a three-point play, and after another Lancer turnover, DeJoseph scored on a lay-up. The 6-4 senior had nine in the quarter, and Allen had six more and 12 in the half. Truthfully, Allen could have had a lot more. He missed a couple of free throws and missed three or four shots from close range he normally makes.

“When Jayden plays like Jayden can, he is one of the best players in northern Nevada,” Mendeguia said. “Sometimes he’ll take a play or two off. Once he figures that out, you see what happens.

“Tez could have had 40. He missed some foul shots and some 2-footers. He is doing a good job of running the 1 spot (point). It gives us a multi-dimensional guy there who can do everything.”

Even when Allen was struggling, he was doing other things. He was grabbing boards, and he slipped two or three nice passes to DeJoseph for baskets. The two complement each other well. They seem to have a sixth sense of where the other is.

“We’ve played together for a long time,” DeJoseph said. “We have a lot of chemistry. We like to get each other the ball.”

In a sense, it’s a matter of trust. They trust each other to finish off plays.

After building the 19-point lead, Carson didn’t score in the final 3-plus minutes of the half, turning the ball over five times and going 0-for-4 from the field. McQueen failed to capitalize on any of the mistakes. In fact, the Lancers went 1-for-9 from the floor and turned it over six times.

The teams traded baskets for the first 2 1/2 minutes of the second half before Carson went on a 16-6 run over the final 5-plus minutes of the period to take a 52-29 lead into the final period.

Again, it was Allen and DeJoseph doing the bulk of the damage. Allen scored eight on a variety of shots and DeJoseph contributed five. Allen was much more efficient finishing plays in the second half.

McQueen got the deficit to under 20 with a little 9-4 run thanks to 3-pointers by Andrew Clark and Guillermo Ramos-Garcia, but Carson retaliated with an 8-2 run of its own to achieve its biggest lead of the game, 64-40, with about three minutes left.