By Bill Kiser
sports@salisburypost.com
MOORESVILLE ó Even though Carson has virtually assured its first-ever playoff berth, head coach Brian Perry wanted to send a message in the Cougars’ regular-season finale.
Instead, it was Carson’s players that got a wake-up call, falling behind by double digits early and seeing its second-half rally fall short in a 55-51 NPC loss to Mooresville on Wednesday night.
Darius Moose had a game-high 20 points and pulled down 10 rebounds, and Josh Doby added 17 points for the Cougars (11-13, 7-11), who showed little offensive balance in trailing by as many as 18 points in the first half.
Perry used 11 players in Wednesday’s game, and only four managed to score ó Moose, Doby, Nick Houston (nine points) and Brandon Ferrare (five points).
Making things worse was Carson’s shooting woes, especially from 3-point range. They shot 29.8 percent (17 of 57) from the field, including a season-low 4-of-29 on 3-pointers.
“I thought we had a lot of open looks but we dug ourselves a hole and couldn’t dig our way out of it.”
In contrast, the Blue Devils (10-10, 10-8) showed plenty of balance, with nine of their 13 players scoring.
Carson trailed 29-11 at one point and it was 31-21 at the break.
“Cutting it to 10 at halftime was big mentally for our kids,” Perry said. “In the second half, we were able to chip away at it further, but we could never get that critical rebound or critical 3 to drop.”
carson (51) ó Moose 20, Doby 17, Houston 9, Ferrare 5, Clanton, Heggins, Sewell, Holloway, Begic, Harden, Walser.
mooresville (55) ó K.Johnson 10, Blackwood 8, Wilson 7, Patterson 7, Sutton 6, Ryan 6, Lester 5, I. Johnson 4, Willis 2, Leach, Powell, Caldwell.
Carson 4 17 11 19 ó 51
Mooresville 14 17 9 15 ó 55