By T. Scott Boatright
Sophomore guard Carson Carrico led the way with 20 points, including a pair of 3-pointers, to lead the Choudrant Aggies to a 57-39 win at Calvin Tuesday night.
Carrico has had a hot hand in recent games, sinking three 3-pointers in a 52-50 win over Jonesboro-Hodge last week.
“We’ve had six or seven games that have gone down to the wire,” said Aggies coach Ryan Smith. “Putting ourselves that many times where the game is tied at the end, the guys are confident now in those situations. Now we’ve lost some and we’ve won some, but they’re starting to feel more comfortable in that spot.”
Choudrant ended the season with a lack of experience at the guard position, making the play of Carrico and others even more important.
And the play of those guards have helped the Aggies off to an 11-7 start on the season.
“I was unsure of how we’d start the season,” Smith said. “We’ve lost five key guards over the past two years, so we were unsure how that position would work out. But these new guys have been awesome.
“We’ve had to change our style a bit, but they’ve stepped up and filled those holes and are getting better every day, and that’s put us in a pretty good spot early on in the season with that kind of inexperience.”
Carrico is a big part of that surprising early-season guard play for the Aggies.
“Carson is only a 10th-grader but he’s a confident kid,” Smith said. “Whenever he can get some shots to go down early he’s got a mentality that he can carry the game —- he can hit big shots.
He’s really stepping this up now and I think the sky’s the limit for him. He’s just going to keep getting better and better.
Choudrant took control early against Calvin, leading 20-4 at the end of the opening stanza and 31-17 at halftime.
Senior post player Michael Jones poured in 16 points for the Aggies against Calvin while Lawson Stevens added 12 and Braden Soto chipped in with eight.
Next up for the Aggies is a game at Saline (9-7) at 7:30 p.m. today before Choudrant plays host to Frankston, Texas (11-3), at 10 a.m. Saturday.
