Girls Basketball: Defense leads Senators to win

Two big scoring surges and a dominating effort on the glass got the Carson High girls basketball team over the .500 mark in Northern 4A play.

Carson went on a 12-2 run to end the third quarter and opened the fourth quarter with an 8-3 surge en route to an easy 51-38 victory over Spanish Springs Tuesday at Morse Burley Gym.

Carson upped its record to 7-6, while Spanish Springs fell to 6-7.

The Senators grabbed 24 offensive rebounds and forced 27 Spanish Springs turnovers in holding the Cougars to 15 second-half points.

"In the first half our defense wasn't so hot," said senior Jazmyn Stokes, who finished with 12 points, eight of them coming in the second half. "In the second half, we picked it up."

Spanish Springs went 5-for-13 in the final 16 minutes, but it committed 16 turnovers which lead to 10 third-quarter points during the aforementioned 12-2 run which gave the Senators a 40-31 lead. In a span of 67 seconds, the Cougars turned the ball over on four straight possessions, and the Senators scored each time down the floor.

Eliza Matley, who also finished with 12 points, scored eight of those in the third period. The other four came from Emily Collins.

Sam Owens cut Carson's lead to 40-34 with 7:46 left in the game, but eight straight points gave Carson a commanding 48-34 lead with 4:28 remaining. Stokes had two free throws, Lisa Yamamoto (9 points) scored on a putback and Elayna Shine added a basket and free throw, and Natalie Stevens added a free throw.

Spanish Springs ended the 3 1/2-minute drought with a free throw, but a putback by Yamamoto and baskets by Collins and Matley gave Carson its biggest lead at 17 points.

"They killed us on the boards," said Christine Eckles, Spanish Springs head coach. "Twenty-four offensive rebounds (we gave up) and 27 turnovers. You can't win a game like that. They played well."

"We got some turnovers and easy baskets," Carson coach Todd Ackerman said. "Even at 47-34 I was still nervous."

Stokes, who didn't start, led an 8-1 run with two putbacks. The first started the surge and the second ended it, enabling Carson to tie the game at 26 early in the third period.

"I think that was big (Carson's offensive rebounding)," Stokes said. "Before the Douglas game coach Ackerman told the 'bigs' that he didn't care if we scored a point. He just wanted us to get rebounds."

Ackerman said after the game he'd like to see his team do a little better job of finishing after getting offensive rebounds. In a second-quarter sequence, Carson went 0-for-5, and in its third-quarter surge the Senators had a 0-for-4 sequence.