Jessika Carter leads with double-double as Harris County rolls Manchester

If Harris County’s Jessika Carter had just a few more minutes on the court in Friday’s 65-24 victory over Manchester, the senior might have walked away with a triple-double.

Carter was dominant offensively and defensively for the Lady Tigers and posted a double-double with 19 points and 10 rebounds. Carter seemed destined to break double-digit blocks as well, ending the night with six to her credit.

“When she does well, she grabs rebounds off the rim and everybody knows she can score when she touches the ball. If you shoot it, she’s probably going to block it,” Harris County coach Steffanie Ramsey said. “I felt like she probably should have had a triple-double. She kind of got caught watching the game a little bit, but we’ll take what we got.”

Carter and Co. wasted little time putting the Lady Angels in their place by jumping out to an 8-0 lead that ballooned from there. While Harris County worked the boards and let Carter and Taziha Fanning put up bucket after bucket, Manchester struggled to drive the ball down the court.

Fanning finished the game with 12 points, 4 rebounds and 2 blocks. The presence of her and Carter was what Ramsey pointed to as the reason Harris County dominated like they did.

“We got two bigs that nobody else can play with,” Ramsey said. “That’s the main thing.”

Because of the nature of the score, Harris County was able to give a number of players considerable minutes Friday. Five Lady Tigers — Carter, Fanning, DaShara Carr, Kenequa Ligon, and Ny’Azjha Carter-Ransom — ended with at least five points.

Ramsey is hopeful Friday’s game has helped the depth of the team improve that much more before the Lady Tigers’ reach the truly make-or-break games on the schedule.

“We’re getting ready to play our last two region games and get ready to go on to the region tournament,” Ramsey said. “Everybody’s got to contribute, so we wanted to use tonight to make sure everybody was prepared and everybody knew what they were doing.”

This story was originally published January 27, 2018 at 10:29 PM with the headline "Jessika Carter leads with double-double as Harris County rolls Manchester."