North ‘Carr’-ied past SC by senior’s 35 points

North Harrison senior Morgan Carr has played with, against and in the shadows of her two older sisters Leigh and Jo for years, watching both break NHHS records and play college basketball.
Last Wednesday night, she made her own family history, scoring 35 points and leading the Lady Cats to a hotly contested 69-66 win over visiting South Central. The performance topped her two sisters for scoring in a single game.
‘It’s usually not like that,’ Carr said of her performance. ‘I just shoot. I thought I had 28 but not 35. Missy told me that Leigh had 31 and Jo had 30, so I beat both of them. I never thought I’d score 35 points.’
‘Morgan can shoot,’ Lady Cat coach Missy Voyles said. ‘She really can and when she’s on, she’s on. When she’s on we should make sure the ball’s in her hands all the time. I like to see her shoot. When she’s hitting and not thinking and pulling the trigger, she’s a dead-eye. Neither one of her sisters (Jo and Leigh) ever scored 35 in a game. She outscored them.’
It didn’t take Carr long to get in the score book. Brittany Schoen got a deuce to start the game but Carr put up her first shot from behind the arc on the left wing that swished through for three. That started the first of 14 lead changes in the game, which also featured 10 ties.
Nine lead changes came in the first period with the Lady Cats up by just one after the first eight minutes. Rachel Cannon scored twice to keep North Harrison out in front by two, before a series of five turnovers.
Carr pushed the Lady Cats to a four point edge but Samantha Troutman drilled a three, closing the game back within one.
Then came a battle with Cassie Milburn who answered with a triple and then did it again after Troutman swished a second from behind the arc.
Schoen got two from the stripe, then Carr went downtown twice to put North Harrison out front by eight, 40-32. Following four turnovers, Schoen rainbowed a three with a second left on the clock, leaving North Harrison with a five-point edge, 40-35, at halftime.
In the first half, Carr piled up 23 points.
‘I’m not sure what the percentage was on them but there was a lot on both sides,’ South Central coach Randall Schoen said of the bevy of threes from both teams.
‘The past couple of games we’ve struggled with our shooting a little bit. In the first half it was like that but the second half we seemed to get our eye back just a little bit better. We have to hit those shots. We have to have Brittany and Samantha knocking down threes for us like this.’
Carr and Schoen traded threes to begin the second half. Rachel Cannon got active scoring twice in the paint following two South Central turnovers, the Lady Cat lead going to nine. Sarah Pease scored inside for the Lady Rebels but Carr countered again. Troutman drilled a three but Milburn negated that by going downtown as well.
North Harrison then lost the handle on the ball on four occasions, South Central converting on every one to make a 10-0 run, putting the Lady Rebels in front 53-52 at the end of three quarters.
Amanda Hardin pushed North Harrison back in front with a three but Pease tied the game back up, scoring in the paint with just over six minutes to go.
At just under four minutes, Carr and Milburn got loose inside to give North Harrison a 64-60 edge. Schoen swished a three but Carr counted with a deuce.
With a minute and a half to go Megan Zumar was called for her third foul and Cannon got one of two for a four-point North Harrison lead once again. With just under a minute to go Zumar got a short jumper and with a half-minute left Schoen got a single pulling South Central back within one, 67-66.
South Central got two chances when Milburn and Charissa Brooks each missed the front end of a one-in-one. With five seconds to go Cannon got two free throws to put North Harrison up by three.
Schoen got off one last shot that went left, as North Harrison survived 69-66.
‘I can’t fault our effort,’ Coach Schoen said. ‘I just fault some of our decision-making down the stretch. We’ve got a young team but we’ve played ten games now and we need to quit looking at youth as an excuse for us. We just made some bad decisions down the stretch at what we were going to do.’
Voyles said she expected South Central to come in looking to attack.
‘I expect everyone to,’ Voyles said. ‘You lose Tara (Miller) and everybody is going to come out and pressure you a little bit more. That’s kind of a nature to get there. They’re going to have to learn to handle it. I think they’ve done a decent job of handling the pressure full court.’
North Harrison’s seniors put in 61 of the Lady Cats’ 69 points. Besides Carr’s 35, Rachel Cannon finished with 13 and Cassie Milburn totaled 11. North was 26 of 65 from the field (10 of 24 from downtown), swished seven of 11 free throws, and committed 19 turnovers.
North Harrison also won on the boards, 51-34, out-rebounding the Lady Rebels 30-18 in the second half.
‘I thought we had some kids that wanted to shoot the ball,’ Voyles said. ‘My three seniors stepped up and really put some points on the board for us and that needs to happen. I thought both teams played well. It was a good contest all the way around.’
Schoen led the Lady Rebels with 26 points and Troutman checked in with 12. Pease followed up with 10. The Lady Rebels were 22 of 61 from the field (7 of 24 on threes), connected on 15 of 23 free throws and committed 11 turnovers.
‘I thought Zumar did a really nice job as far as rebounding,’ Randall Schoen said. ‘She really stepped up to the plate against a much bigger and talented team. I think that helped us stay in it as close as we did.’
Schoen also commended Pease on her job as floor general.
‘Sarah’s like that,’ South’s coach said. ‘She’s not flashy, so a lot of times her play gets overlooked a lot. People see a lot of negative things but they don’t see all the positive things she does to. She’s in the trenches and just goes to war for you.’
‘I know North Harrison is going through a rough time right now but they look like they’re starting to make their adjustments real well,’ Schoen added.
‘Anytime we can come in here and play North Harrison like this, once we step back and look at it we’ll be able to get a lot of positives out of it.’
S.C. 69, Henryville 33
South Central came back three nights later and throttled host Henryville in a Southern Athletic Conference contest, 69-33.
The Lady Rebels (6-5, 2-0) doubled up Henryville in the first eight minutes, 22-11, and held a 40-18 advantage at the half.
‘We were able to gain control early in the game and work on being more patient on offense,’ Schoen said.
Freshman Brittany Schoen, who is sixth in the state in scoring (23.7 ppg.), added a career-high 31 points to her season total and senior Samantha Troutman added 11. Sarah Pease, Jenna Kingsley and Megan Zumar all tacked on six points apiece.
‘Samantha is beginning to get her shot back,’ Schoen said.