Holding court: Carter wins player of year for third time
| Saturday, Apr 04 2009 11:24 PM
Last Updated Monday, Apr 06 2009 10:40 AM
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Stephon Carter
The temptation with Garces senior and boys basketball star Stephon Carter is to pile on the superlatives.
Best player in the Central Section. Plays harder than anyone and never quits. Will do anything to win.
The problem with superlatives is that they're hardly ever true: Really? He'll do anything to win?
Maybe not anything anything, but if you confine it to the basketball court, that one just might be true.
That's why Carter is, for the third time, The Californian's Boys Basketball Player of the Year. He's the second three-time winner and first since Bakersfield High's Alfred Williams in 1998-2000.
For evidence of Carter's desire to win, take Garces' playoff run through the section's Division II -- a full two classes higher than where the Rams were a year ago.
During a semifinal victory against Lemoore, Carter injured his hand in a freak incident: He drove in for a layup, and, as he so often does, got bumped to the floor. On the way down, a Lemoore player unintentionally kicked him in the hand on his way to the end other end of the floor.
"It really was a fluke play," Carter said.
Carter finished the game -- and, by the way, recorded 30 points, 17 rebounds and six assists -- and then watched his hand balloon like baking bread.
Carter tried to convince anyone who would listen -- including, perhaps, himself -- that it was just a strain or a jammed finger and that he'd be fine for the section title game two days later.
"In hindsight, the kid would have said he was ready to go if his arm was chopped off," Garces coach Gino Lacava said.
At issue was the opponent. Garces was to face Liberty, the only team in Kern County to beat the Rams. And they had done it three times in agonizing fashion.
"When you lose to a team three times in a row, by two points on a buzzer-beater, by five points, whatever, you know you can beat them if you just give that extra push," Carter said. "There was no way I was missing that game. I couldn't lose to Liberty another time."
Whether he could play effectively with what was later diagnosed as a broken bone in his non-shooting hand was another matter.
Carter answered that one, too. He threw in 33 points and collected 19 rebounds as the Rams emphatically reversed the results of the earlier Liberty losses with a 91-78 victory and the section title.
"That," Lacava said later, "was pretty darn heroic."
And so it is with Carter. Best in Kern County? His 22.7 points a game were actually third behind Centennial's Cody Kessler and Stockdale's Jordan Burris, though that belies the fact that opponents were trying anything and everything (yep, more superlatives) to slow Carter down.
"He awed me more times than I can count, which is a heck of a compliment," Lacava said, "considering some of the athletes we've had."
Plays harder than anyone? A matter of opinion, of course, but even a rival coach says that discussion probably starts with Carter.
"Obviously he's skilled, but it's his motor and desire to win that separate him," Liberty coach Andy Hicks said. "He plays with so much energy and passion. In that (championship) game, we had three starters foul out just when he decided to take it to that next level. He couldn't be guarded. Stephon just took over."
Will do anything to win? Carter, who got the cast on his hand off this week, says he'll keep doing that at Cal State Bakersfield, where he signed to play over numerous other Division I offers.
"That's what I try to do," Carter said. "Being a freshman, I'm going to have limitations, but if the coaches tell me 'We need you to score,' that's what I'm going to try to do. If they need me to be an all-around type guy and not score as much, rebound, whatever, that's what I'm going to try to do.
"... I'll do anything just to get a win."
