By Mike London
mlondon@salisburypost.com
CHINA GROVE — Every win by the Carson girls adds to a school-record winning streak, and the Cougars moved to 9-0 with a methodical 58-34 win against Davie County on Thursday.
Kelly Dulkoski scored 21 for the Cougars, while hard-nosed Amy Steller led the War Eagles (1-7) with 18.
This is a Carson program that won just four of 71 outings in its first three seasons — Statesville buried the Cougars 72-16 and 75-17 in those bleak days — so you have to smile when you hear opposing fans barking at Carson to back off defensively once it gets a 20-point lead.
Mostly you have to smile for coach Brooke Misenheimer, who survived all those losses with her sanity intact, and now has a team as good as the ones she played on at East Rowan.
“Carson’s just better than us,” Davie coach Denny Key said. “They’re very good. The best we’ve played this year.”
Davie, which didn’t have No. 3 scorer Sydney Wooten available, has played some 4A teams and perennial NPC champ North Iredell, so that’s a significant statement.
Carson was never seriously threatened, but Misenheimer’s expectations are high and she saw some things she wasn’t thrilled with.
“We can be proud of every win, but if we’re going to be honest with ourselves we know there are things we need to do better if we’re going to keep improving,” she said. “We didn’t rebound well tonight and we missed way too many easy shots.”
The best things Carson did were on defense.
Guards Dulkoski and Sarrah Holman created flurries of turnovers and limited Davie guard Laura Shelton, who averages 9 points per game to five. Steller, the other guard, got her average, but she had to make tough runners to do it. She’s great at drawing contact and averages 10 free-throw attempts per game, but she shot only shot four free ones.
“Their two guards were our main focus,” Holman said. “We knew if we could slow them down some, we pretty much had this game.”
Carson led 20-10 after a quarter. Then two quick 3s by Dulkoski early in the second quarter blew it open. It was 34-14 at halftime.
“Kelly did a good job of attacking,” Misenheimer said. “Defensively, we did a pretty good job on their scorers, and we got a lot of deflections.”
When Dulkoski dished to Katherine Barringer and Holman for fourth-quarter layups, Carson’s lead peaked at 58-29 with 2:17 remaining.
“We battled a lot better in the second half, but Carson can beat you with their shooting or their screen-and-roll game,” Key said. “At least, we kept them from scoring 80.”
DAVIE (34) — Steller 18, Shelton 5, Peterson 5, Bohannon 4, Jones 2, Smith, Gadson.
CARSON (58) — Dulkoski 21, Holman 13, Blackwell 6, Barringer 6, Phillips 5, Allen 4, Monroe 3, Stirewalt, Parks, Cole.
Davie 10 4 7 13 — 34
Carson 20 14 13 11 — 58