Team Carson beats Douglas

MINDEN - A dare was extended to the Carson High School girls basketball team on Tuesday night.

But when the Douglas Tigers tried to take away the one-two scoring punch of Alyson Thurman and Pam Williams, the rest of the Senators stepped forward and wound up running away with a 60-42 Northern 4A Division II victory against their cross-county rival.

Thurman scored 16 points and Williams 10 even though Douglas started out in a triangle-and-two defense geared toward stopping Carson's dynamic duo. The Senators pulled out two more aces, however, as senior guard Davina Carter scored 13 points and junior post Meghan Gradert added 10 to provide balance to the attack.

More than that, it was Carter and Gradert who scored eight points each in the first quarter as Carson jumped out to a 22-7 lead. It was a combination of other factors, as Carson (16-4) evened its division record at 1-1.

"Davina knocked down a couple of 3s," Croghan said. "Meghan got some shots early and hit them. Pam was doing a good job of crashing the boards. Erin (Stieber) did a good job of bringing the ball down against their press ... the defense seemed to be effective and we got some transition points. It was a good team effort."

That was just what Douglas hoped wouldn't happen. Make that a Douglas team that dropped to 2-1 in Division II and 13-4 overall for the season.

"Our game plan was to make their other players beat us, and they did," Douglas assistant coach Allen Gosselin said.

"Give Carson credit, they outplayed us, they outcoached us, they outhustled us," head coach Werner Christen went on. "I was real impressed with them."

The Senators extended their cushion to 34-15 at halftime and led by as many as 25 points early in the third quarter. Douglas did stage a brief run, scoring 10 unanswered points to cut the gap to 42-27 with 2:40 left in the third period, but the Tigers never got any closer than that.

Stephanie Combes led all scorers with 17 points for Douglas, highlighted by four 3-pointers. Two of those treys came during the Tigers' 10-0 run in the third quarter.

The final score caught Croghan by surprise.

"Coming to Douglas, you're always hoping to play well. We've had some real battles down here. We've never won like this," Croghan said.

"This may have been the best four quarters we've played all season," added the coach, whose club rebounded from a loss in its division opener last Friday at Reno. "Hopefully we can keep going from here, because the games are all important from here on out."