Home court doesn't help Cougars
By Greg Hoffman Contributing sportswriter

The 2A top-ranked Tipton Blue Devils (16-1) and the Carroll Cougars (6-10) faced off for the first time in regular season play last Thursday night at CHS. The visitors came away with the 55-41 win.

The contest marked the second time this season that Carroll found itself going up against a top ranked team, right after they suffered their first loss of the season. Tipton fell to Northwestern (16-1) Tuesday night. And Northwestern, ranked No. 1 in Class 3A, lost to North Miami three days before facing Carroll on Jan. 25.

Tipton took an early 8-0 lead and never trailed. Turnovers again plagued the Cougars early. A Jacob Craig trey with 5:24 left in the quarter gave Carroll its first points. The Cougars fell behind by 11, but by the end of the first quarter had closed the gap to 8 at 19-11. Carroll had 9 miscues in the quarter and only four field goal attempts. They were 3 of 4 from the field.

In the second quarter, Carroll cut down on turnovers, but could not find the basket, hitting on 1 of 14 attempts. As a result, they were outscored 17 to 7 in the quarter and down 18 points, 36-18 at half-time.

Carroll lost the services of guard Justin Brown for the season with a torn ACL early in the second period.

The Cougars settled down after intermission. They never fell behind more than 19 points and outscored Tipton 23-19 in the half. Late in the game the Cougars went on an 11-4 run to close the gap to 12.

Neither team shot well from the field. Carroll was 13 of 38 for 34%, while Tipton was not much better at 18 of 52, 35%. Tipton out-rebounded Carroll 27 to 20. Adam Tussinger led the Cougars with 6 rebounds and Adam Spesard grabbed 5. Craig had a game-high 16 points for Carroll and A. Spesard added 12.

Tonight (Wednesday) the Cougars (6-10, 2-1) will be at Clinton Central (7-10, 2-2) for a varsity match-up only. Game time is 6:30 p.m.

Friday the Cougars are at Taylor and Saturday are back at home against Frontier for Senior Night. Central leads the series 39-33, Taylor leads the series 9-3 and Carroll leads the series with Frontier, 22-20.

JV loses to Blue Devils

Tipton held off the (11-6) Cougars with a fourth quarter surge, 59-49.

Both teams came out smoking. There were nine lead changes and two ties in the first quarter before visiting Tipton took the lead for good at 17-16. The Cougars could only muster one field goal in the second period. Tipton took a 12-point lead, 32-20, before four straight free throws pulled Carroll back into single digits before halftime, 32-24.

Tipton outscored Carroll 12-11 to go up 44-35 after three. The Cougars started the fourth period with a 7-0 run as Riley Eller had two baskets and Drew Yoder a trey to put the Cougars back into the game at 44-42. But Tipton came right back with nine unanswered points and claimed the win.

Kyle Geheb and Primmer Zook led Carroll with 11 points each. Riley Johnson and Yoder had 8 each.