Chad Lundquist/Nevada Appeal Carson High's #42, Brianna Dodge goes up for a shot against McQueen's #22 Danica Marks, left, and #23 Elyse Sambrano, during Wednesdays game.
Sinead McSweeney wasn't quite ready for her high school basketball career to end, so she went out and did something about it.
McSweeney scored 12 points, eight in the first half, and pulled down nine rebounds to spark Carson High to a surprisingly easy 59-34 win over McQueen in the first round of the NIAA 4A regional playoffs Wednesday night at Morse Burley Gymnasium.
The win sends Carson into the semifinals against High Desert champion Galena Friday night at 5 p.m. at Carson. The winner receives an automatic berth into next week's state tournament.
With the win, Carson avenged two non-league losses to the Lancers, who played without guard Lisa Bishop.
"I wanted to win," McSweeney said. "This is my senior year, and I may never play basketball again. I wanted to make the most of it."
And, she did exactly that, according to Carson coach Ric Garcia.
"She came to play," Garcia said. "She's had some really good games for us. She's strong; stronger than Nicole (Scott).
"We want her to play defense and grab rebounds. If she scores that's great. We wanted her to go out and score 10 points."
McSweeney nearly did that in the first half, scoring eight points on 4-for-5 shooting. Six of those points came in the first 6 1/2 minutes when Carson bolted to 12-4 lead. Alyx Sacks' free throw shaved the lead to 12-5 after one period.
It only took the Senators about three minutes to double their lead. After a free throw by Danica Marks, Kaitlin Burroughs knocked down a 3-pointer, Brandi Vega drained two free throws and Rosella Nunez popped in her only 3-pointer of the game to make it 20-6.
Brooke York, who led the Lancers with 15 points, scored five straight points to get the deficit under double digits at 20-11. That didn't last long, as an 11-5 half-closing run, led by Megan Kilty's four points, made it 31-16 at halftime.
The Lancers turned the ball over 10 times in the first half, and the Senators turned those mistakes into 14 points.
"We were missing our two primary ball-handlers (Bishop and Kayla Cass)," McQueen coach Toby Hilliard. "We had a lot of trouble scoring. We usually don't give up 59 points. Their guards did a good job.
"Number 31 (McSweeney) did a great job, and we had no answer for Nicole."
Garcia said that Bishop's absence did hurt McQueen.
"They had a hard time running their offense," Garcia said. "She's able to go out there and calm them (teammates) down."
Bishop or no Bishop, the Senators won the game on the inside, as Scott and McSweeney dominated.
Scott, who had a quiet first half with six points on 3-for-7 shooting, broke loose in the third quarter, scoring six points to spark a 10-4 run, giving Carson a 42-20 lead with 4:33 left.
Carson was able to maintain that 20-point bulge the rest of the way. Scott scored nine points and pulled down four rebounds in the final 16 minutes. She finished with 15 points.
"We're going to go as far as those two people (Scott and McSweeney) take us," Garcia said.
Garcia knows that Galena's inside players will be a huge test for McSweeney and Scott, but he also knows that his team is comfortable playing on its own court.
"That's why we fought for No. 2 (second place)," Garcia said. "We did not want to be going to Reed. I hate that gym.
"We played Galena early in the year. We didn't lose by a lot. They're a lot better. We're going to need our A game to beat them."
Contact Darrell Moody at dmoody@nevadaappeal.com, or by calling (775) 881-1281