BOYS: Hughes-led Douglas escapes with OT win

Douglas senior Connor Hughes has made somewhat of a living as a facilitator/distributor for the Tiger offense this year.

While he's only averaged five points a game, the team has averaged 60.5 thanks in large part to his direction of the offense from the point.

But it was Hughes Friday night who ingnited a spark on the scoring side for the Tigers, scoring a career-high 20 points and hitting four 3-pointers to lead Douglas over Carson 54-46 in overtime.

"He had a great game, no question," Douglas coach Corey Thacker said. "We were struggling getting anything going on offense and he made a big difference. He was solid on defense too and he knocked down free throws at the end. He was a big part of this win."

Aside from the actual point total, it was how Hughes was scoring that provided the biggest difference in the game.

Carson, suddenly upstart with a deceiving 1-10 (now 1-11) Sierra League record after playing arguably the two top teams in the north extraordinarily close this week (the Senators led top-ranked Hug for much of the game Tuesday before eventually falling away by an identical 54-46 score), employed a tightly-packed 2-3 zone defense focused on bottling up Douglas standout Hunter Meyers.

Through the first 20 minutes of the game, it worked perfectly as Douglas struggled to just five field goals and only four points in the paint as Carson worked the score to a 16-all tie with four minutes remaining in the third quarter.

"We're going to make a stand and not be the easy team on anybody's schedule," said Carson coach Carlos Mendeguia. "Every game we play from here on out, we want the opponent knowing they had to work hard; were in a hard-fought game."

Hughes, though, hit a big 3-pointer to put Douglas up 19-16 and hit two more on Douglas next two trips down the floor, giving the Tigers a 25-18 lead with 2:45 left in the quarter.

The explosion forced Carson to make a change defensively, and Douglas was able to settle into its normal offense more down the stretch.

"He hits those shots, and all of the sudden Carson's guards have to come out to deal with him," Thacker said. "That opened things up inside for guys like Hunter (16 points) to work.

"Credit Carson. They ran their defense well. We're going to see that against Galena, and McQueen if we see them again. It's what Spanish Springs showed us at times the other night (in an overtime loss). It's good to get experience against those sets. Carson is very well-coached and they got after us and clogged things up. There were a lot of stoppages in the first quarter and that allowed them to pack it in with that zone and keep us out of our transition game."

While Douglas was able to settle in offensively, Carson refused to go away.

Trailing 25-22 with 0.4 seconds left in the third quarter, Ty Keefer caught an inbound pass off the baseline at the top of the key, popped it quickly in the air and drained a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to tie things up at 25.

Carson's Rafe King then opened the fourth by nailing another 3-pointer to give the Senators their first lead of the game at 28-25.

Hughes answered right back with another 3-pointer, his fourth on the night and Myers followed after a Carson turnover with a lay-up and one after drawing a foul for the 31-28 lead.

Carson strung together its best offensive stretch of the night in response, though, as Keefer scored in the paint and Austin Shaffer and King each hit 3-pointers for the 8-0 run and 36-31 lead with 4:45 left in the game.

Meyers traded a pair of free throws for a King jumper, working the score to 38-33 in favor of Carson, but Douglas found its footing in time for a 9-0 run over the next 2:35 sparked by a 3-pointer from Jake Tessmann.

That stretch put Douglas back up 42-38, but King closed it down with a jumper with only 16.5 seconds remaining.

Hughes hit the front end of a one-and-one at the other end, but missed the second and Carson controlled the rebound.

The Senators drove down, worked the ball around the arc until it got to King, who launched a gam-tying 3-pointer with 4.5 left.

"That was a tough shot," Mendeguia said. "There are two trains of thought. You can call a timeout or try to score in transition. After a timeout, the defense has a better chance to get organized. In transition, people are running around and sometimes you can get a pull-up jump shot like Rafe did."

Douglas missed a potential game-winner off the front end of the rim as time expired, sending the game into overtime.

From there, the Tigers' depth won out as Douglas rung up a 9-0 stretch before Kyle Denning hit a 3-pointer, the 14th of the game between the schools, to draw Carson to within 52-46.

Hughes hit a pair of free throws to seal the win.

"We took good care of the ball, both at the end of the fourth quarter and in overtime," Thacker said. "That was important."

King led Carson with 16 points, whille Keefer added seven and Shaffer added five.