TIMBERLAKE Even after Carrboro rolled over Roxboro Community School by 44 points last week, John Alcox’s Jaguars thought it premature to talk about sweeping the Carolina-12 Conference in boys’ basketball.

“Being undefeated in the conference? That’s not really a goal,” Alcox said as his Jaguars readied for the long, rainy trip Wednesday night back to Carrboro. “Our goal is to meet and beat our opponents, one by one.”

Up through Thursday, Carrboro (12-3 overall, 8-0 conference) has had little trouble meeting that goal.

In a three-game stint over six days, Carrboro demolished the lower division schools in the Carolina-12 Conference: winning at 2A Durham School of the Arts 77-37 Tuesday, downing 1A Raleigh Charter 91-43 and then wiping out Roxboro 91-47 on Wednesday.

While Alcox has been preaching defense and rebounding to his players, the Jaguars have been averaging 71 points a game and beating opponents by an average margin of by 22.7 points a game. (Their three losses were by an average of 4.0 points a game.)

“I’ve told them I was okay with what they were doing on the offensive end; I was happy with their effort. It was the defensive end that was bothering me,” Alcox said.

Ironically, the Jaguars’ diffident defense early in their game Wednesday may ultimately have worked in their favor.

With barely 350 high school students, and a varsity team of average height that plays in nearby Helena Elementary School’s metal gym, Roxboro (4-10, 2-6) was unfazed by Carrboro’s athletes and gamely tried to run with the Jaguars.

Failure to slow down the Bulldogs early, allowing them a brief 6-4 lead, just encouraged them to run more.

“We were trying to slow it down some,” Roxboro coach Kirk Redman said, “but they weren’t listening.”

By the end of the first quarter, Roxboro had played most of its bench but still fatigued and fell behind 17-12. Carrboro opened the second quarter with a 17-3 run, sparked by a series of Roxboro turnovers that led in one stretch to three straight layups in transition by Matt MacKinnon.

“As the game went on, our bench seemed to get shorter and their kept getting longer,” Redman said.

Carrboro’s 6-6 James Scott took over in the third quarter, scoring nine points in a 14-2 run that put the Jaguars on top 50-27 with 17:16 left in the game.

Yet another run at the start of the fourth – a 20-2 spurt, led by Marlin Johnson’s eight points – put Carrboro’s win on ice.

Johnson ended up with 17 points and Scott 18 points (along with his game-high 12 rebounds) to lead Carrboro’s offense. Trai Sharp came off the bench for 11 points and Jack Nanney 9 as every Jaguar scored.

Mickey Drumwright led Roxboro with his 14 points.

“We’ve played everyone in the conference but Granville Central and Cedar Ridge,” Scott noted. “Winning our conference has been one of our goals since the start. Going undefeated would be something extra. But we definitely want the conference.”

Girls Basketball: Carrboro 61, Roxboro 34

TIMBERLAKE Diamond Tyson scored most of her game-high 21 points Wednesday in the second half to help Carrboro’s girls team pull away from Roxboro Community School for a 61-34 victory.

Camille Gallagher added 12 points and Nicole Davis 11 as Carrboro (11-4, 6-2) won its fifth straight Carolina-12 game.

Carrboro coach Sheremy Clanton noted that her Jaguars again followed their habit of starting slowly.

“We’re still struggling with that,” she said. “We were a little slow, a little flat.

“We have a tough game Friday. We need to play hard all four quarters if we’re going to do well against a tough team.”

Carrboro, which was coming off its seventh win in eight games, was scheduled to play Friday at Granville Central, where the (14-1, 6-1) girls team was a half-game behind league leading Northwood and River Mill in the Carolina-12 race.

That game, weather permitting, was played too late for today’s edition of the Chapel Hill News. See www.newsobserver.com for results.