Carson High spotted Fallon an early goal in the first five minutes of the game and then scored four unanswered goals en route to a 4-1 victory in a Sierra League girls soccer match Tuesday night at Carson.
The Senators improved to 11-0-1 heading into Saturday's 11 a.m. home match against archrival Douglas. The Tigers lost to South Tahoe 2-1 on Tuesday. All Carson has to do is win one of its last two games to win the league title. Fallon dropped to 1-10.
Carson, after a slow start, outshot Fallon 27-7 and dominated the last 55 minutes of the match.
"I think we all thought that we were going against Fallon and we beat them the last time," said Samantha Fishburn, commenting on Carson's slow start out of the gate. "We didn't realize they had gotten better. We just thought we could go out there and beat them."
Fallon scored in the fifth minute when Carly Martin bombed a 30-yarder that went off the hands of Carson goalie Emily Heller, who got a rare start in goal. It was one of four Fallon shots in the opening half.
"They came out hard," Carson coach Randy Roser said. "We were a little lax. We let them come at us. After that goal, we took possession of the game."
Carson had several good scoring opportunities the rest of the half. The Senators made several good runs that went without a shot. Arran Rumbaugh hit the crossbar in the 26th minute, and five minutes later Megan Jackson blasted one from close range that was off the mark.
Carson finally tied the game with approximately two minutes left in the half when Brenda Luquin fed Miriah Tompkins, who beat Fallon goalie Michelle Brown. It was Tompkins' fourth goal of the season and the seventh assist for Luquin.
Carson's offense really got going in the second half, scoring twice in a seven-minute span to take a 3-1 lead.
Fishburn scored the go-ahead goal in the 51st minute when she blasted one from 40 yards out that got over the head of Brown, who had come about 10 yards out of the goal.
"I've taken a lot of those," Fishburn said. "I hit it right through the center and it curved right in."
Jackson scored an unassisted goal in the 58th minute to give the Senators a two-goal bulge. Jackson finished the scoring with 7:29 left off an assist by Luquin.
"Carson started using a lot more motion at the top of the box; diagonal runs and across the box," Fallon coach Lance Lattin said. "We had trouble marking some of their players. They also possessed the ball a lot more than we did."
Roser said diagonal runs are a staple of his offense.
"His defenders were dropping off 30 feet," Roser said. "It gave us all the time in the world (to set things up)."