Seven long years. Who would have thought it would be that long between football wins for Carson High against archrival Douglas?
Not Shane Quilling, who was in his first year as head coach when the Josh Carter-led Senators rolled to a 42-6 win. Not since then has there been joy on the Carson side of the field the last week of the regular season.
"I would have never thought that we wouldn't have won since then," said Quilling, who is now an assistant under current head coach Blair Roman. "The neat thing about playing Douglas is that we're all good friends.
"We had built momentum the year before (2000) when I was an assistant. We beat them down in Douglas. Josh Carter ran the ball down their throat. The next year (2001) we thought we could run the ball. Josh had a huge day."
Douglas coach Mike Rippee admitted that he doesn't like to talk about losses. Like any coach, he likes to put those out of his mind.
"They had some outstanding players," said Rippee, who is 13-11 in the rivalry. "We struggled. We had a lot of sophomores up that year."
Two of those - quarterback Luke Rippee and wide receiver Andy McIntosh - would go on to play at the University of Nevada. Rippee was in the program three years while McIntosh lettered all four years (five total in the program) and became one of the Pack's best special teams players. McIntosh eventually earned a scholarship after joining the team as an invited walk-on.
Carter, who teaches English at Jesse Carson High School in Concord, N.C., remembers the game as if it was yesterday. Not surprising, considering he played a starring role. Carter also coaches track, and until this season, was an assistant on the varsity football staff.
"I remember I scored four touchdowns and it was Senior Night, my last high school home football game," said Carter in a telephone interview earlier this week. "It was the only time I got to play against Douglas at home in my varsity career. I'm not sure why that happened, maybe it was just the way the schedule worked out. My sophomore and junior years we were at Douglas.
"I think we were 3-5 at the time. We were playing for playoff seeding. If we lost we would have had to go to Elko and if we won we would have played McQueen or Galena. We ended up going to McQueen. We'd played at Elko at the beginning of the year, and we didn't want to go back up there. That was a little bit of motivation for us."
Carter also remembers that the game didn't start out on a positive note for him.
"We had a good kickoff return and then I fumbled on my first carry," Carter said. "The next time we had the ball we drove it on them. After that, we ran away with it.
"One of the things that made it extra special is the my brother Paul got some significant playing time because we were ahead and he scored a touchdown. We had five of our six scores that night."
Any Carson player is pumped up to play Douglas, and Carter's group was no exception.
"It was a quiet pregame, but they were into it," Carter said. "We clicked on all cylinders that night. We really executed.
"I felt like we had the better team. I thought we were clicking well at that point of the season."
Carson went on to the playoffs and lost to McQueen in the first round.