By David Vantress

It’s always nice to send the Senior Night crowd home happy.

The Carroll High School girls basketball team was able to do just that last Friday night, dominating South Side, 71-31.

With the win, the Chargers improved to 5-14. They honored their two seniors, Taylor Fordyce and Kayla Gibbs, after the contest.

This one wasn’t in doubt for long. The Chargers blitzed out to a 19-8 advantage and led 24-10 at the first stop.

Carroll led 42-15 at intermission and 58-21 at the final stop.

Sophomore Jersey Paul led the Chargers with 20 points. Fordyce added 18.

Carroll coach Mark Redding liked his team’s energy out of the gate.

“We were able to keep up that intensity all night,” Redding said.

The Chargers substituted freely all game long and got quality varsity minutes for most of their reserves.

The Chargers finish up the 2022-23 regular season Friday night at Snider. It will be another SAC girls-boys doubleheader. Carroll was slated to host North Side Tuesday night.

The IHSAA Class 4A sectional draw was held Sunday night: Carroll will face Northrop in the first round of the DeKalb Sectional Tuesday night, Jan. 31, in the second game of the night. North Side and DeKalb will meet in the sectional opener at 6 p.m. The Carroll-Northrop contest will tip off 20 minutes after the end of the first game, at approximately 7:30-7:45 p.m.

Northrop was an 81-52 winner in the teams’ first meeting this season.

Carroll’s record is now 5-14 overall due to an IHSAA violation penalty handed down by the state high school sports governing body recently. Carroll used an ineligible player in nine games earlier this season. Eight of those games were wins, and those games will be forfeited.

Carroll Athletic Director Dan Ginder said there was an issue with a transferring a player’s paperwork, and that he accepts responsibility for the situation.