By Bill Kiser
sports@salisburypost.com
MOORESVILLE ó Carson head coach Brooke Misenheimer saw a lot of good things out of her players in the first half of Wednesday’s game against Mooresville.
The second half? Not so much, as the Cougars allowed the Blue Devils to pull away for a 50-38 victory.
Kaylene Livengood scored 11 points for Carson (2-21, 1-17), which ended the season with seven consecutive losses and finished in the league’s basement for the third straight year.
That means the Cougars will have to play West Rowan Friday night in one of two “play-in” games for next week’s NPC tournament.
Alexa Martin scored 12 points and DeeDee Stockton added 11 for the Blue Devils (8-14, 8-10), who finished tied for fifth with West Iredell and virtually assured themselves one of the NPC’s six playoff berths with their third straight win.
Yet it was Carson that looked like the playoff-bound team in the first half.
The Cougars scored the first seven points of the first quarter, and after Mooresville rallied, closed out the quarter with a 5-point run to go ahead 12-9
The two sides then swapped the lead five times in the second quarter and tied it twice, including 24-24 at the break.
“It was a good first half,” Misenheimer said. “We finally attacked the basket like we’ve been emphasizing, and we got some good stuff off it. We also played pretty good defense.”
The second half, though, was a different story ó Carson went cold in the third quarter, hitting just 1-of-11 from the field as the Blue Devils went on a 17-4 run to lead 41-28 entering the final period.
The Cougars did make a run at the start of the fourth quarter, with Livengood pouring in eight consecutive points ó including a pair of 3-pointers ó to cut Mooresville’s lead to 41-36 with 5:29 remaining.
However, the Blue Devils responded with nine unanswered points, taking their biggest lead at 50-36 on Leondra Pridgen’s layup with 1:01 remaining.
“We couldn’t score, and that killed us,” Misenheimer said. “The third quarter is so telling ó whoever comes out and gets off to a good start usually wins the ball game. We couldn’t score, and that was the turning point of the ballgame right there.”
Carson (38) ó K. Livengood 11, Monroe 8, Heggins 7, M. Livengood 6, Settlemyer 4, Brown 2, Sellers, Meismer.
mooresville (50) ó Martin 11, Stockton 11, McLaughlin 9, Smith 8, Prodgen 7, Berryman 2, Harris 1.
Carson 12 12 4 10 ó 38
Mooresville 9 15 17 9 ó 50