Carp sharp; TRCC rolls past MSU-West Plains

By ALEX ABATE ~ DAR Sports Writer

Three Rivers sophomore Adam Carpenter played a game of turn-back-the-clock Saturday at the Bess Activity Center and MSU-West Plains paid the price.

Carpenter, who lit up opponents during his high school years at Doniphan, scored 23 points on 8-of-8 shooting, including seven 3-pointers, as the Raiders pulled away for a 83-60 win.

"It felt good, it felt really good," Carpenter said. "It felt like I could hit anything. My teammates were doing a good job getting me the ball and getting me open shots."

Carpenter had five points in the first half and in the second, his teammates were looking to get him the ball.

"I told him in the second half that I was going to find him and we would go from there," Carter said. "If he was to hit one, I would keep finding him and that is what I did."

The Raiders are now 22-4 on the season and 7-0 in Region XVI play with one region game remaining against Mineral Area.

"Now it has come down to we have to win that one last big game," Three Rivers coach Gene Bess said. "We have some other big games before that. We have to go down to Arkansas Baptist and we know how tough it is to go down there."

Carter had a double-double with 19 points and 10 assists for the Raiders while Jeremy Marrs had eight rebounds and was the only other Raider in double figures with 11 points.

After the Grizzlies got three points to start the second half, the Raiders got going. Carpenter drained a 3-pointer and Carter followed with a hoop to give the Raiders a 40-35 edge. The Raiders opened up an eight-point lead at the 14:06 mark after another Carpenter 3-pointer.

Three Rivers scored 11 straight midway through the second half capped off by a Nick Niemczyk long ball to take a 59-42 lead with 8:53 left in the game. The Raiders extended their lead to 20-plus late in the half before going on to win by 23.

"We didn't really come out the first half to play, we kind of came out kind of not going hard," Carter said. "Coach got on us in the second half and told us we need to come out and play like we play and that is what we did."

Three Rivers entered the break with a 35-32 lead after letting an eight-point edge slip away midway through the first half.

West Plains went on a 10-0 run that started at the 10:20 mark which gave the Grizzlies a 20-18 lead with 6:20 left in the first half. Later, West Plains had a three-point lead but Three Rivers closed the half on a 9-3 spurt to lead by one possession at the break. Carpenter nailed a basket at the 2:26 mark and after two points each from Carter and Marrs, West Plains tied the game at 32-32 with a 3-pointer. Three more Raider points sent the teams for the locker rooms.

"I was not too surprised we didn't play too well the first half," Bess said. "We didn't have a good shoot-around this morning and we didn't seem to be focused."

Three Rivers was dialed in to start the game. Carpenter nailed a 3-pointer from the right wing at the 18:32 mark and after a West Plains basket from Chris Williams, Three Rivers scored seven straight points capped off by a Josh Terry dunk at the 16:20 mark that gave the Raiders a 10-2 lead.

Later in the half, West Plains got within four but the Raiders used a 6-2 spurt to get back ahead eight. After two free throws from Carter, Marrs got a dunk and Allan Spencer scored.