By Nick Bowton

Salisbury Post

MOORESVILLE — A few Carson players mentioned Tuesday night after their game at Mooresville that they had decided to “put on the boxing gloves and come out swinging.”

The Cougars often do come out swinging. They just usually only do so for one half.

They fixed that issue last night, when Carson finally figured out how to weather an opponent’s run and defeated Mooresville 61-51 for its second overall victory and first NPC win of the season.

“Our coach (Brian Perry) has been talking about all year long we’ve been sitting at the middle of the mountain,” Carson senior Clint Fontenot said. “We’ve been looking over it at the beginning of the game, but then we’ll sink back down.

“When we got in there, he was like, ‘I want y’all to look over the mountain top and see what’s on the other side and keep playing with the intensity y’all have been playing with.’ ”

What the Cougars found on the other side was patience.

Perry said his young team has a bad habit of forcing shots when an opponent goes on a run, and Carson (2-18, 1-10 NPC) faced such a situation last night.

Mooresville (7-14, 3-8) started its run at the end of the second quarter, when it scored seven straight points to trim its deficit to 22-20. Then the Blue Devils, sparked by a flurry of 3-pointers, went ahead 41-40 at the end of the third quarter.

Throughout the process, though, Carson continued to feed Darius Moose in the post. Moose finished with a game-high 18 points and also had 12 rebounds.

“That was about the story of the game,” Perry said.

Another part of the story was Perry’s decision to stick with Moose, Fontenot, Brandon Ferguson, Josh Doby and Justin Basinger throughout almost the entire fourth quarter.

Ferguson scored five points as Carson opened the quarter on an 8-0 run, and Doby scored eight of his 10 points in the quarter. The Cougars even got a not-what-the-coach-wanted 3 from Fontenot, a post player, at the top of the key with 1:54 remaining.

That shot put Carson ahead 54-48, and a three-point play by Doby 32 seconds later made it 57-49.

“I always tell the guys I’m gonna play the five that, whatever game it is, I feel comfortable with,” Perry said. “That five right there, I thought, was doing a good job.”

Carson (61) — Moose 18, Ferguson 11, Doby 10, Fontenot 7, Kosinksi 5, Basinger 4, Hutchinson 4, Ferrare 2, Freeze, Yates.

Mooresville (51) — Henley 9, Smith 9, Clark 9, Sutton 8, Maynard 6, Leach 5, Mayes 3, Parker 2, Millsaps, Patterson, Mercer.

Carson 14 8 18 21 — 61

Mooresville 10 10 21 10 — 51

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Contact Nick Bowton at 704-797-4256 or nbowton@salisburypost.com.