Miners hand Carson boys hoops first Sierra League loss

BY DARRELL MOODY

Nevada Appeal Sports Writer

RENO" Ordinarily a 20-point loss would have Carson boys basketball coach Bruce Barnes up in arms.

Minutes after the Senators had suffered a 66-46 loss to Bishop Manogue in a battle of Sierra League unbeatens Saturday, Barnes was standing in front of his team diagramming why things went wrong. Not once did he raise his voice. He was surprisingly calm.

"Our defense didn't play that bad," said Barnes, who watched his team fall to 3-1 in league play, 9-6 overall. "They hit a lot of shots that were contested " tough shots. They have the best trio of guards (Keith Fuetsch, Niles Lujan, Bobby Hunter) in the league. They can all shoot it and are difficult to stop.

'We won't see a team like this until we play Manogue again. The tempo was in our favor in the first half. We missed some layups, otherwise we would have been ahead at the half. Overall, we shot the ball well (46 percent)."

Carson's strategy of patience and trying to keep the score down didn't surprise Manogue coach Bill Ballinger.

"Obviously Bruce wanted to slow things down," Ballinger said. "They did a good job. I didn't want to back it out. I wanted to play basketball. They are a good basketball team. We wanted them to work hard on every shot and we did that."

Carson turned the ball over 20 times, and several of those weren't even forced. The mistakes somewhat nullified a decent shooting effort.

Bishop Manogue had a 25-15 lead with 2:20 left in the first half following a 3-pointer by Fuetsch, who finished with 21 points.

Carson went on an 8-3 run, as Josh Peacock started the surge with a stickback. Paul Cagle III, who led Carson with 16 points, followed with two free throws. Manogue misfired on its next two possessions, and Cagle scored again to make it 25-21 with 42 seconds left.

Manogue's Pat John drained two 3-pointers sandwiched around another Cagle score to make it 31-23 at the break.

The Miners used a 7-2 run at the outset of the second half to stretch their lead to 38-25. Fuetsch had a 3-pointer and a nice drive to the basket while Hunter (15 points) added two free throws.

The Miners' strategy was simple. One of the perimeter players would penetrate and kick back out to a teammate for a 3-point attempt. The Miners were 12-for-27 overall from beyond the arc.

"That's our goal," Ballinger said. "We try to get easy looks. We did a pretty good job of that."

Carson got it back to 40-33 with 3:47 left on baskets by Patrick Smith, Uriel Duran and Steven Fowzer, but didn't score the rest of the period, turning the ball over three times and missing three straight shots.

"We had turnovers when we tried to force the issue, which is not what we wanted to do," Barnes said. "We got a little anxious. They got us in transition and we didn't get anybody back there."

The Miners took a timeout when Carson cut it to seven, and they were a different team.

"I got the blow torch out," Ballinger said. "I reminded them that they were much better than they were playing."

A three-point play by Steven Carlson and a 3-pointer by Fuetsch fueled the quarter-ending 8-0 run which boosted the Miners' lead to 48-33.

Brian Barnes, who was playing with a broken jaw and five stitches suffered during the Damonte Ranch game on Friday, scored the first basket of the fourth quarter to make it 48-35.

However, the Miners got a 3-pointer by Fuetsch and two free throws by Hunter to make it 53-35. Carson never got closer than 14 points the remainder of the game.

Cagle was the only consistent offensive player for the Senators.

"They made some adjustments at halftime," Bruce Barnes said. "We were still able to get him isolated a few times in the second half."

With Brian Barnes playing injured, the Senators needed Cagle to step up and carry the load, and he did exactly that.

- Contact Darrell Moody at dmoody@nevadaappeal.com or (775) 881-1281