2016 Carson High Football vs. Douglas, October 28, 2016

If someone asked you to define a rivalry game, how would you answer? I’m sure you could blurt out well known rivalries, Yankees vs. Red Sox, Giants vs. Dodgers, Cowboys vs. Giants… Carson vs. Douglas… if you live anywhere in Northern Nevada you’re aware of the Carson Douglas rivalry… well tonight’s, as a rivalry game, did NOT disappoint… Douglas put up some late 4th quarter points and played some tough defense and walked out of Carson’s field with a 31-17 win.

I’d say as in most rivalry games you’re likely to see things that you might not have seen at any point in the season and well… the things last night were plentiful. I cannot imagine the amount of tape that was watched in prep for tonight’s game… I think the thing that will define the night for me was the hard hits that were happening, they were plentiful and some memorable, as in knock out mouth pieces memorable.  I know the pure definition of smash mouth football is more of an offensive term but the “idea” of “smash mouth” comes to mind when I think about the hits and more importantly the sounds of the hits from tonight’s game… WOW!  The other thing I’ll take with me, the horrible officiating…

I’m only going to touch briefly on the officiating because these kind of things get people in trouble with the NIAA and we don’t want that… 🙂  But honestly… last night was the worst I’ve seen of the season… in what is likely the deepest rivalry game of the season in Northern Nevada and THIS is the team of refs we got?  In any sport, the officials job also includes NOT effecting the outcome of the game… and no, I’m not going to say there weren’t other things that weren’t as big of a factor in a win or a loss (depends if you’re Carson or Douglas…) last night but when a “non fan” of the game of football is so disgusted by the horrible calls of the referees… alright, enough of that… well, just one photo… and Coach would never say this but I can say it for him… 🙂

Simple caption…

WTF…

Coach Blair Roman

On to the photos… 🙂

You have to appreciate the dedication of getting to the field early to get the front row!  Several of your 2016 Sierra League Soccer Champs in that front row tonight!!

The Fans, Carson High

Sideline buddies!  I know there are families that come to games… but there are also families formed BECAUSE of games… we spend a lot of time together over the course of a year, we get to share the ups and downs, it’s a lot of fun.

Love those smiles ladies!Sideline Buddies

And onto the game… I’ve said this before in prior posts this year about games with a high amount of running plays, particularly one’s up the middle… yawn… kinda boring from a photographic standpoint… but none the less, that’s what we have we still need to make some pictures!

Carson’s Sheldon Miller bringing down Douglas Quarterback Hunter Hickey.Douglas High Tigers

Clawing for another inch…Rivalry Football

I just like this shot… seems like he’s saying, “… we’re coming, are you ready?”
Carson High Senators

What’s come to be known on the sidelines as “The Abel Carter Show” once again did not disappoint with just over 200 yards rushing on the night… hard not to aim the camera at Abel… how many hundreds of photos do you suppose I have of him?Abel Carter, Carson High Senators

Carson High vs. Douglas High Basketball, January 26, 2016

Carson Douglas always brings a crowd… tonight was a little disappointing to me but I get that it’s Tuesday night and there are a lot of things going on….

The Carson Boys continued their dominance of the Northern Region and extended their league record to 11-0 with a win tonight over Douglas.

Be sure to check out all the images in the galleries for the schools in the menus.

The Carson student section is always entertaining… 🙂160126_7645

Jaden is always a force in the paint…160126_7648

2015 NIAA Northern Region Championship Soccer @ Carson High

Again, a big congratulations to all four teams for making the NIAA Regional Championship games, this year in particular is special because the North hosts state and therefore all four of these teams will compete in the State Championship tournament which is Friday/Saturday, November 13th and 14th. (stay tuned for coverage of those matches)

A big Congratulations to the Bishop Manogue Miner Girls and the Carson High Senator Boys for their NIAA Regional Championship Wins in some of the wackiest weather I’ve ever seen for a soccer game!

Don’t believe me… This was about 15 minutes into the boys game, the girls game finished in these conditions… YIKES! 🙂

I left during the boys game due to the fact that the snow was so intense the camera would grab focus on the snow and not the player… see below…

Some shots from the girls game first… The game started out with just a slight bit of rain and Douglas seemed to have more of the attacking for most of the first 3/4 of the game… not to say that Manogue didn’t have their opportunities, just seemed that the pressure of the game was with Douglas… 151109_4011

Then in the second half the weather picked up… it wasn’t quite cold enough to snow quite yet but not just solid rain either… the camera is already starting to have issues….
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As with most of the last several years of Regional Championship games, I set up a remote camera in the goal… Regional Championship day has been on a bright sunny Saturday afternoon with barely a whisper of clouds in the sky… So the “opportunity” to get something good on a night like this was very much foiled by the conditions… the big bright dots are rain drops on the lens… the blurry players are because when you shoot with a remote like this you need more light to allow you to shoot with the lens more closed down and thus my shutter speed went WAY down to 1/30th of a second for this shot (remember aperture, the smaller the number the more shallow the depth of field, with a remote you want everything in focus so you use a smaller aperture (a larger number…)…).  You generally shoot portraits of people around 1/125th and I shoot sports at 1/1000th… if it were not for the tripod the camera is on here everything would have been blurry so I’ll take what I got… 🙂151109_4149

This next photo seems rather uninteresting but will be talked about as a huge controversy of this game… I know FIFA is all over the news for bad and corrupt leadership but the fact still remains they are the maker and keeper of the laws of the game and this one is literally black and white in the rule book…

Law 12 from the FIFA Rule book… see the Bolded section…

  1. Sending-off offenses:
    A player, substitute or substituted player is sent off if he commits any of the following seven offences:

    • serious foul play
    • violent conduct
    • spitting at an opponent or any other person
    • denying the opposing team a goal or an obvious goalscoring opportunityby deliberately handling the ball (this does not apply to a goalkeeper within his own penalty area)
    • denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity to an opponent moving towards the player’s goal by an offence punishable by a free kick or a penalty kick
    • using offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or gestures
    • receiving a second caution in the same match

I’ve been involved with soccer a very long time (1979), there are a lot of “judgement” rules for soccer where the referees have to make a decision, is it a foul or is it not a foul (and spectators expect an instant decision…)… FIFA added this rule right before a World Cup (I believe it was before the 2002 World Cup) and it created a lot of controversy at the time but was put in place to radically discourage an age old practice and was the beginning of what has now been coined by FIFA as “Fair Play”… They have a good point as this was very common practice in all my years of playing… can’t quite get there or stop them, just take them down with a little bump, nudge or trip… no big deal… NOW with an automatic red card on the table, you don’t do that any more…. There isn’t a player on the field that hasn’t had that rule in place for their entire playing career….
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That resulted in Douglas playing with 10 with just a few minutes to go (the play was outside the box so no penalty kick, “just” a direct free kick…) and momentum swung completely in favor of the Miners… They scored and solidified their Championship.151109_4204

Here’s the muck the boys were dealing with… the camera was having fits with this weather… I had to call it a night… I have a feeling we may very well see this matchup again in the State Championship game… we’ll see on Friday if the South teams have something for either of these two teams. 🙂151109_4250151109_4231151109_4252

2015 NIAA Northern Region Football, Douglas vs. Carson at Douglas

Congratulations to Carson for their 2015 Sierra League Championship!!

There is something about the Douglas field that has “troubled” Carson for every game that I’ve ever seen there… maybe it’s the fact that the field is named after Coach Roman’s dad… who knows what it is… Douglas moved the ball pretty well, Carson had some huge plays that broke the game open in the end and they walked away with a 42-13 win.  Here are some shots from the night….

Carson's Asa Carter Strips the ball from the Douglas Wide Receiver
Asa’s strip that wasn’t to be… this was blown dead by the official as stopped forward progress by the offense… pretty clear who has the ball here… 🙂
The Douglas Quarterback was elusive all night extending quite a lot of plays and converting them into big gains for the Tigers
The Douglas Quarterback was elusive all night extending quite a lot of plays and converting them into big gains for the Tigers
The swarming Carson High Defense
The swarming Carson High Defense
Carson Senator Kicker Johnny Barahona
Kicker Johnny Barahona gives me the thumbs up!

2015 LSP High School Senior All Star Basketball Games, Carson High School

Local Sports Program held their annual Senior All Star Basketball games tonight at Carson High School… It was great to see some of these players in action again.  Check out more in the galleries.

2015 Girls

2015 Boys

150526_7701 Hailee Simpson Elko High School Brianna Holt, Bishop Manogue High School Tara Garcia, Wooster High School Clint Hess, Virginia City High School Jeff Evett, Fallon High School Colin Bernard, Bishop Manogue High School Christian Gray, Lowry High School Dilyn Rooker, Carson High School LSP Senior All Star Boys Basketball

2015 NIAA Baseball and Softball Seasons are here!!

The Northern Nevada NIAA High School Baseball and Softball seasons are here!! Much more to follow but here are some shots from some of the opening games of the season at Carson High.

Bailey Allen getting the bats going for the Carson Senators.
Bailey Allen, Carson Senators University of Nevada, Reno bound Kaleb Foster… it’s funny listening to the opposite teams talk about Kaleb… no one dares run on him. 🙂  I love his glance here to keep his eye on things.Caleb Foster, Douglas Tigers Josiah Pongasi taking care of business at shortstop.Josiah Pongasi, Carson Senators Turner Gustafson in the late afternoon sun throws to first.Turner Gustafson, Galena Grizzlies A new face behind the dish for the Carson Senators, Brandon Allen.Brandon Allen, Carson Senators

2015 NIAA Northern Region Division 1 Rivalry Basketball, Carson vs. Douglas

I’m not sure there’s a better venue for big rivalry basketball games than the Carson High Gym.  The atmosphere is always amazing when the stands are full, the student sections are cheering and having goes at each other, it’s a great place to be!  If you are a pure basketball fan, last night’s boys varsity game left a lot to be desired (combined 33% shooting for both teams massive turnovers… not a night for the stats…) but the overall  atmosphere and the excitement was still worth the price of admission.  Carson pulled out the victory with a push in the second half that Douglas could not counter and Carson ran minutes off the clock passing the ball around to close out the game 37-29 (yes, that score is real…)

In the girls game the Douglas girls coasted to an easy victory 59-36.

All four teams will be going onto the playoffs, on Tuesday, Carson Boys will host North Valleys, Douglas Boys will travel to Spanish Springs.  Wednesday the Douglas girls will host North Valleys and Carson will travel to Reno.  First round playoff games are at 7:00 PM at the higher seed school. Region semifinals and championships will return to Carson High on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  Here’s the link to the NIAA site for playoff info… NIAA Site

Here are some images from the night! You can ALWAYS count on a physical match up when these two teams hit the “playing field”… 🙂

We’ll likely see this same matchup come soccer season in the fall… 150213_4036 It seems like yesterday that Michelle (Carson) was running up and down this court as a freshman, now she’s heading out the doors!  Thanks for being such a good sport all the years Michelle! You are ALWAYS good for a fun facial expression!  It’s been fun, I was telling your dad the other day, there aren’t very many multi-sport ladies left at Carson High.  I wish you the best of luck!150213_4055 Melissa was the spark in Carson’s game… just not enough to overcome Douglas…150213_4057I’ve been covering Connor for years… I make the same comments every year, it’s amazing to see them “grown up” and moving on… Connor’s always played with a lot of heart, tonight was no different!  Best of luck to you Connor!
150213_4075 THIS is rivalry basketball… on the floor battling for the ball!150213_4078 I was playing around with an angle viewfinder.  It’s a periscope kinda idea, allows you to put the camera lower than it would normally be at your eye level and you look down through… Gotta love the packed house and hard play at a Carson Douglas game!150213_4083 Kyle Steel shooting from outside, gotta love that packed house in the background!150213_4101 Cameron Price made his mark on this game inside during the second half.150213_4117

NIAA Northern Regional Championships, Soccer, Volleyball

November 8, 2014 will be a day remembered for the Douglas High Girls Athletics program! The photos will speak for themselves… Two Regional Champions crowned just hours apart, Girls Soccer and Volleyball… and plenty of smiles to go around!!  Congrats ladies!!  Good luck at State!

Douglas High Athletics Photos

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One more for Douglas!! down in Vegas… State Champion… Lindsay Adams took her second State Cross Country Championship!  Congrats!  Sorry for the year old photo… don’t have a newer one…1D1_2694

And last, but not least, the North Valleys Boys Soccer team won the NIAA Northern Region Championship today defeating Galena 2-0.  Here’s one shot from that game with my remote goal cam… kinda fun!

North Valleys Boys Soccer Photo Gallery

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NIAA Regional Girls Soccer… Douglas vs. Spanish Springs @ Carson High

It’s been a busy busy week (more in a few days, the week isn’t over yet…)… but I got to catch the NIAA Regional Girls Soccer match on Thursday night at Carson High between the Spanish Springs High Cougars and the Douglas High Tigers…  The Douglas girls started quick, as in 19 seconds into the game they fired their first shot on goal…  Douglas walked a way with a 4-1 win and ended with most of their starters resting on the bench.  Douglas will play Galena who went into penalty kicks (so they played the equivalent of an extra half of play… then kicks…) against Bishop Manogue.  The Regional Championship will be at Damonte Ranch High School at Noon on Saturday, November 8, 2014.

Here are a few shots from the night…

Sometimes you make mistakes… but sometimes it comes pretty cool… well in a photo geeky kinda way I guess! 🙂

141106_3887 141106_3918 I liked the “drive” of the players here… I can feel them moving… 🙂141106_3937I’ve been shooting McKenna for quite a few years and there’s no doubt she’s a goal scorer, look at the focus on watching the ball… need to show all the youth players this… watching the ball as you strike through it… you hit it well, you’ll have plenty of time to celebrate it going in the goal… just as it did here!

Looking forward to the Regional Championship on Saturday!141106_3950