Prep Basketball: North Iredell boys 54, Carson 46

By Mike London

mlondon@salisburypost.com

CHINA GROVE — North Iredell boys coach Tony Davenport grabbed Andrew Weibley off his bench and sent him to the scorer’s table with the instructions — “Get me a charge.”

Weibley drew that charge, and it was the key moment in North Iredell’s 54-46 NPC win on Wednesday that spoiled Carson’s Senior Night. The whistle Weibley caused with 1:33 left in the third quarter supplied the fourth foul on Carson’s Tre Williams, who is the show-runner, ballhandler, press-breaker and leading scorer for the Cougars.

Williams got his third foul in the opening seconds of the second half and sat six minutes. He’d been back on the floor just eight seconds when he got his fourth.

“That was key,” Davenport said. “The Williams kid is very hard to stop.”

Carson coach Brian Perry agreed.

“Tre makes us go,” he said. “He does so much for us, and he can usually make shots. We had a hard time making shots with him out of there.”

Carson (7-17, 3-9) had to be feeling some carry-over from letting a 21-point lead slip away against West Rowan on Monday, and it got off to a horrendous start. The Cougars were down 16-4 before they offered resistance.

But then Carson held NI (8-14, 4-8) without a field goal in the second quarter to close within 19-18 at halftime.

Unfortunately for the Cougars, North Iredell’s Austin St. John scored 16 of his 20 points in the second half, mostly on well-executed pick-and-roll stuff with big man Travis Laws.

“In the third quarter, our offense started working and we built a lead,” Davenport said. “But I still never felt comfortable.”

Carson, which got 15 points from Colton Laws and 11 from Williams, trailed by as many as 10 points in the fourth quarter, but a 3-pointer by Jacob Raper and a driving layup by Dontae Gilbert made it 48-44 with a minute left.

North Iredell, which finished fifth, then blew a layup, but St. John produced a backbreaking stickback.

““We got a lot of stops,” Carson’s Laws said. “But we just couldn’t get shots to fall.”

N. IREDELL (54) — St. John 20, Hunt 16, T. Laws 7, Nolen 7, Brown 2, Colvins 2, Wiebley, Ely, Jordan, Mullins.

CARSON (46) — C. Laws 15, Williams 11, Gilbert 9, Love 5, Raper 4, Howard 2, Stout, Abbitt, Bigelow, Martin.

N. Iredell 18 3 15 18 — 54

Carson 8 11 9 18 — 46