CHINA GROVE — An explosive first quarter proved to be the difference for Carson on Wednesday night at home against Salisbury.
The Cougars scored early and often in the opening frame, pouring in 30 points to breeze to a convincing 83-57 victory.
“This was a great win for us,” Tre Williams, who led all scorers on the night with 25 points, said. “We played together, passed the ball more and played defense together.”
After the Hornets grabbed a 6-3 advantage on a Corban Usry trey early in the quarter, Carson took over.
The Cougars reeled off 17 unanswered points to grab a healthy 20-6 lead.
When the dust finally settled on the stanza, Carson had built up a commanding 30-11 advantage.
“Big first quarter,” Carson head coach Brian Perry said. “I told the guys that we probably wouldn’t go for 30 very many times this season.”
The Hornets regrouped during the break and stung back, using an 8-0 spurt to get within striking distance at 38-25.
Salisbury kept firing, closing the half on a 16-4 charge — highlighted by back-to-back triples by DeShawn Troutman — to head to the locker room down just 42-33.
The Hornets trimmed the deficit down to seven at 47-40 midway through the third quarter. But Williams and Carson answered with a run to pull away.
“That first quarter killed us,” Salisbury skipper Jason Causby said. “We cut it down to seven twice, but when you exert that much energy to come back from where we were, you just run out of gas and start feeling sorry for yourself and you start feeling sorry for yourself and it goes back out to 27.”
Williams scored six straight points as the Cougars pushed the lead back out to 17 at the end of three.
The senior sealed the game with a trey and converting 6-of-8 free throws down the stretch.
Williams tallied 16 points in the second half alone to lead Carson’s charge.
“It’s great to see but it’s what we expect to see with Tre Williams, Colton Laws and Jacob Raper,” Perry said. “I think they’ve learned that you’re not going to walk in and run all over somebody, especially somebody as good as Salisbury.
“We have a pretty experienced team that’s been through it enough and know that it’s a game of runs,” he continued. “We had a nice run in the first quarter and they had a nice run in the second quarter. I thought if we could get the first three or four minutes of the third quarter that we’d be fine.
“Once we started knocking down some shots and grinding it out, we stretched that lead back out and did a nice job of finishing it out.”
Williams pointed to a change of attitude at halftime that keyed the run.
“We went in at halftime and talked about how we can’t relax, we have to play how we play to the last minute,” he explained. “We came out with a different attitude, and that’s what happens when we play together.”
Colton Laws finished with 21 points for Carson, while Marquez McCain pitched in with 12 more.
“Jacob Raper had a great floor game tonight,” Perry added. “I don’t know how many points he had, but he was the best facilitator that we had out there; he was driving with a purpose to get somebody open.”
Troutman and Wes Fazia recorded 18 points apiece to pace the Hornets, who also got 11 points from Usry.
“You never know how young kids are going to react,” Causby explained. “With the amount of underclassmen we put on the floor, I was real proud of the fact that we stayed steady.
“That second quarter is something that you can build off of or you can start to finger point about why we got down so much to begin with.,” he added. “We take the positive play out of that and build on it for the rest of the year.”
Carson, now 6-2 on the season, returns to the floor Friday night on the road against a tough 6-1 Concord squad to cap a three-game week.
“It feels good to get back-to-back wins.,” Perry said. “We’ll try to go down to Concord Friday and battle them and see what happens.”

SALISBURY (57) — Troutman 18, Fazia 18, Usry 11, Canipe 5, Brown 3, Alexander 2, Oats, Payne, Rayner, A. Yang, J. Yang, Davis, Petty, Wilson
CARSON (83) — Williams 25, Laws 21, McCain 12, Raper 8, Rucker 7, Hower 5, Hogue 3, Isom 2, Herron
Salisbury 11 22 13 11 — 57
Carson 30 12 21 20 — 83