When Carson High tees it up against Reno Thursday night at Foster Field, the Senators will be attempting to get into the school record books for the second straight year.
The Carson football team will be shooting for its ninth straight win without a loss, which according to several within the CHS community, has never been done before in school history. In fact, when Carson went 9-3 a year ago, it set a school record for wins in a season.
With a couple of one-loss teams right behind them in McQueen and Reed, not only does a ninth straight win put the team in the school record books it also wraps up the Northern 4A regular-season championship and would give the Senators the top seed entering the eight-team playoff.
"There has been quite a bit of talk about it," senior center Danny Gall said. "We had Bishop Manogue and Douglas right in the middle of the year which was the real hill to climb. After that I thought we had a pretty good chance of doing it.
"We just have to beat Reno. They have played some tough games, and they're a pretty good team. We're going to be practicing hard this week and see what happens."
Jon Parker, who like Gall is a three-year varsity player, wasn't sure what the season was going to bring.
"I knew there were three or four games we were going to win," Parker said. "All the others I thought would be up in the air. We just came in and started winning. It's an exciting time. It's nice to know we have all the chips in our hand and that we control things."
Since Carson clinched a playoff berth in the fifth week of the season, the only thing that was unknown was whether Carson would run the table or not.
Quarterback Trey Jensen admitted that the team is excited about its accomplishments.
"We know we are the first team that started 8-0 that we know of," Jensen said before Monday's workout. "Hopefully we'll handle things well. I try not to think about it too much. We won't want to be too uptight. We want to be a little loose and confident."
Coach Blair Roman has cautioned his team not to be too overconfident. The Senators will be working on one less prep day because of Nevada Day as teams play on Thursday instead of Friday. It's not the greatest timing to have one less day to practice, but Roman said the Senators will cope.
"It's more mental than anything else," he said. "It's getting their legs back. It would be tougher if it was earlier in the year. We've taught them technique, the rest of it is mental.
"I've told the team we're going to have our hands full. Obviously they played a tough game against McQueen. They let a couple of scoring opportunities get away."