instaimage

You always come away from a Carson Douglas game with some great memories… and Friday night’s games did not disappoint!

In addition to the links to the left under Current Events you can also find all the High School images here…

https://instaimage.com/chs

https://instaimage.com/dhs

Onto the games…

As I was looking through the photos of the girls game a theme very quickly developed… the girls were all flying! 🙂 Take a look and you’ll see what I mean!

Carly driving, or rather “hovering” to the hoop… McKenna “hovering” down the court… Kelly shooting for three… and… those toes… 🙂 I played around with a longer lens tonight… made for some very tightly cropped images in camera… sorry, I’ll stop camera geeking out now… All kidding aside with flying girls and camera geek stuff… The atmosphere for the girls game was great, the girls all played hard and it was exciting to watch… both teams are going onto the regionals, Douglas will host Spanish Springs and Carson will travel to Reno. Good luck to all the teams in the playoffs!!

Onto the Boys game…

I hope people don’t look at me during times like this and think I’m irreverent toward my country when they see me snapping away or in this case making a pano with my phone… As a photographer you’re always trying to make great photos.  In my opinion, a packed house with all the attention on Old Glory with our National Anthem playing is one of the very greatest moments in any competition.  I’ll be honest, I get choked up sometimes.  We take for granted the words and the meaning of it but with everyone of us knowing active military and veterans, it’s a VERY significant moment, God Bless our Troops and God Bless America!  And when I started to see how all of this was setting up, I put down my three DSLR cameras on the floor and reached for my iPhone and grabbed this pano of the “moment”.  Sometimes it’s knowing what tool will do the best job at the moment… $X’s of fancy camera gear laying on the floor can’t capture this so easily.

Oh, and… see what you missed if you weren’t there! Look at that place!

The boys game was entertaining for an entirely different reason.  When Douglas visited Carson James Herrick, Douglas’ 6′ 10″ center made at least three blocked shots inside when Carson tried to penetrate deeper into the key… and it’s been well known all season that Carson doesn’t have much size and would be need to run a quick outside shooting game with the weapons they have… well that all made for some VERY interesting run of play with these two teams!

This first shot is of James making a block inside during the first half… Carson spent most the rest of the game trying to NOT have this happen!  Check out the video below this photo, it’s a time lapse of this same play…

Quick and sneaky was the game plan for Carson… here Cameron Price sneaks in from the far side for an easy layup with the inside vacant of The Big Man…
And when Carson did penetrate, get that shot off before The Big Man could get to you…
What do you do when he is over a foot taller than you AND jumps as high off the floor?Watching these games and knowing these kids is a lot of fun for me.  Yea, one team wins and one looses so I’m happy for one and sad for another… but when I get to see them excel at “their” move or play it’s particularly rewarding for me…. This photo is the one photo that I was on the line for tonight.  I believe for every year I’ve been covering Austin Evans I’ve tried to make absolute certain that I get him shooting a three… and with him graduating this year I can confidently say, in his last year I grabbed my very favorite of all the years…. Again, check out the time lapse of this shot below, watch closely, it’s quick!

It was also fun to see the adjustment to his outside shot that Carson made… after this one, he had one more opportunity and from my vantage point and to the untrained “Austin follower” it appeared rather cocky but he almost taunted the Carson defender to come at him and when the defender didn’t take the bait, Austin stepped up and hammered a three… needless to say, that didn’t happen again in the game!  Carson put a quick scrappy Kyle Denning in Austin’s face from then on…

When you break down a game and study the stats you quickly realize the little things that made the difference.  For as long as I’ve been shooting in this area (…since 2009…) Douglas has ALWAYS had a pretty lethal three point game.  You take away three point shots from Douglas and the game is equal… it’s the little things right?

Here Pat Johnson shoots for 3 of his 12 points for the night.

Both teams will be on the road for the first round of the playoffs.  Douglas will travel to Reed Wednesday and Carson will travel to Spanish Springs.  Best of luck to all the teams in the Regional Playoffs!

As you would expect the Carson Douglas varsity basketball games at Carson did not disappoint!  They meet again on Valentine’s Day at Douglas…

Tonights games were very much rivalry games… here are some images from the night.  See the galleries for more shots from the games.

I love the reflection in the floor… thanks McKenna! The “Big” Men inside… here are three blocked shots under the basket…You’ll need to read the paper to get the scoop on how this all unfolded… basically 1.8 seconds left in OT, Douglas called a time out… the inbound ball hit the rafters in the gym, Carson got the ball back… inbound, shot and I believe rebound, second shot… game over 54 to 52!  What a game!  I’m sure the next will be just as exciting at Douglas!