Carson’s senior captain Lauren Finnerty drives into the lane Tuesday against Reed. Finnerty had a game-high 23 points for the Senators in the loss.
Photo by Carter Eckl.
After three quarters, Carson girls basketball (7-14, 3-10) had Reed (19-3, 12-2) on the ropes.
The Senators fell behind by 11 in the third quarter, 39-28, but rallied thanks to nine points from Lauren Finnerty and seven more from Ashlan Smokey.
At the start of the fourth, Carson was down just four, 40-36.
Reed opened the final quarter on an 8-0 run before finishing the game, 61-45.
The resiliency the Senators showed against one of the leagues toughest teams is what caught the attention of head coach Sam Golden.
“We try to instill in the kids that every game is an opportunity,” said Golden. “I think this might be the first game that they actually started to realize that for themselves. … When we buy into our defensive roles and play unselfish, I think we find a lot of success in that.”
Reed’s scoring damage came from Fa’anaeataua Puloka, who had 21 points but four of the five Raider starters tallied double digits.
Finnerty finished with a game-high 23 points, one game removed from hitting the 1,000-career point mark.
“It was really cool. It doesn’t happen a lot so it didn’t really feel real,” said Finnerty on hitting 1,000 career points.
The senior captain felt the team had some good days in practice leading up to Tuesday.
“I think we worked really hard in practice the days coming up to this game,” said Finnerty. “I think that was the game changer. Our support for each other grew.”
UP NEXT: Carson was at home Friday against Galena (8-15, 2-11).