Natali Salas drives to the basket against Wooster on Tuesday.
It took a whole quarter for Carson to wake up, but when they did the Senators were a force.
Carson outscored Wooster 56-20 over the final three quarters en route to roll to an easy 63-27 win Tuesday night at Morse Burley Gym in a Sierra League girls game.
Carson is 8-8 overall heading into Friday’s game at North Valleys (5:15).
The Senators played without leading scorer Savannah Smith, who has a sprained medial collateral ligament. She has an MRI scheduled for Thursday. She is probably out at least two more weeks.
“We had a hard time finding our rhythm,” Carson coach Nate Tolbert said. “That’s life without Savannah Smith. We need other people to step up. We still have a lot of work to do, but we started getting the open lanes and started getting more people involved.”
Among those was Madison Preston, who finished with a team-high 15 points, nine of those coming on 3-pointers. It was her best game of the season. Since coming back from an ankle injury, Preston had been forcing things at the offensive end. Tuesday she didn’t.
“We’ve been talking to her about it,” Tolbert said. “She’d never had an injury like that before. It made her think about stuff.”
Wooster, behind the early scoring of Tara Garcia, led 9-7 early in the second quarter. Garcia scored all nine of the Colts’ points.
Carson went on a 16-0 run over the next six minutes to take control of the game, 23-9.
Carly Bachmann (9 points) started the surge with a free throw, and then Preston scored five in a row to make it 13-9 with 5:49 remaining. After Kayla Aikins drained a free throw, Bachmann and Gina Peacock scored buckets and Preston drained another 3-pointer for a 21-9 edge. Michelle Perry completed the surge with two free throws. Taylor O’Day ended the run with a basket and then JV call-up Serena Miller scored to end the half and up the CHS lead to 25-11.
The teams played on even terms for the first half of the third quarter, but a 12-5 run capped by Miller’s 3-pointer made it 42-21 entering the final quarter.
The Senators closed the game with a 21-6 edge in the final period as Preston and Natali Salas had two buckets apiece.
All told, 11 Carson players scored. Perry complemented Preston and Bachmann with eight points. Peacock added seven and Miller contributed six.