Carver believes Miners can build on state experience

There’s gold in them thar hills!

Though the Silver Valley is best known for another precious metal, its hottest commodity of late is the 7-0 Wallace High girls basketball team.

The Miners’ top nugget this season is junior forward Lisa Carver, who leads the team in scoring and rebounding and, if all goes according to plan, will lead her team to a state title.

All of the indicators are there:

Wallace finished fourth at state a year ago, it returns four starters from that team, and it won convincingly in its biggest early test, against fellow ‘04 state-qualifier Kootenai.

Carver said it’s just a matter of playing the games.

“I think we’re a better team this year,” said Carver, who averages about 13 points and six rebounds a game. “We’ve definitely gained a lot of experience by going to state, because we’d never gone to state before as a basketball team – and that means a lot.

“Just gaining that knowledge of what it’s all about.”

She said the Miners’ cohesiveness and caliber of play hasn’t come by chance: Carver has played nearly year-round since she joined the Youth Basketball League in the third grade, and several of her teammates have been there most of the way.

“We have really good teamwork – we love to play as a team,” said Carver, who credits her older brother, Brooks, as her biggest inspiration and for pushing her to excel at a young age. “All of us juniors on the team have been playing together for a long, long time.

“We were playing together in AAU tournaments before high school basketball even started.”

Despite all the confidence in the Miners’ camp, Carver said she and her teammates are taking nothing for granted.

“Obviously, it’s a lot better to know that we have a chance to win state,” said the 5-foot-8 Carver, who also plays volleyball and runs track. “But it also makes us kind of a target, and everyone’s after us.

“We have to play our hardest every game, and we know (winning the state tournament) can become a reality if we want it bad enough.”

Carver, who holds down a GPA slightly north of 4.0 and wants to study athletic training or physical therapy when it’s time to head off to college, has her act together.

“I want to work with people who are active and I want to help people,” Carver said. “It would be awesome if I could play sports in college, too.

“We’ll just have to wait and see about that, though.”

About the only question she can’t answer is where she would be without basketball.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t even want to think about it!”