STURGIS - Carsey Barden has been doing plenty of good things on a basketball court the past couple of seasons. So it's a little scary to think that her game is just starting to take off.

The 5-foot-11 sophomore point guard from Sturgis has started games going back to her eighth-grade season, showing great skill and speed combined with height.

Barden has had her fair share of good moments on the floor, but coach Mike Friedel saw some things as Barden scored 43 points in wins over Mitchell and Huron last weekend that, well, make a coach happy. Barden scored 20 points in Friday's 53-47 win over Mitchell and 23 Saturday against Huron.

For her efforts, Barden has been named the Rapid City Journal Athlete of the Week.

"I really like what what I saw from the whole team," Friedel said of the 8-6 Scoopers, winners of six of their last seven. "We shot the ball well, and when you shoot the ball well the game gets a lot easier.

"But a big part of our success was (Carsey). The way she runs the floor and creates opportunities for us is very important, and I thought she showed what she could do this weekend even more than she has earlier in the season. And, I'm not putting any extra pressure on her, but she came out and played the way that she's capable of playing."

Point guard play is highly critical on any basketball team and Barden's ability to create - and exploit - mismatches is no less critical for Friedel's team. Barden's unselfish play - she says the weekend was the first time she had scored 20 or more points in back-to-back games - is one of the reasons she's such a good player, but Friedel sees the need for her to do some bucket hunting.

Scoring the baskets herself or not doesn't seem to matter at all to Barden, as long as they are scored by somebody.

"It's not that big of a deal to me, really," Barden said. "As long as we win, that's basically all I care about."

Her coach probably cares at least a little about the wins, too, and he thinks her scoring is important.

"Yes, she does need to score," Friedel said. "I don't really mean she needs to, but she needs to look to score and that's just going to open things up for herself. She loves to pass the basketball and loves to get her teammates shots, so that is just going to open things up for everybody. She's a very unselfish player who does a lot of things on the floor to help us."

Barden's ability to recognize opportunities is what her coach feels makes her good.

"I thought she did a great job this weekend of making choices about when to break somebody down and getting other people the basketball when they were ready to score," Friedel said. "We were very balanced (scoring), I know she had 23 (points) against Huron, but we had (players with) 10, two 7s, an 8 and two 5s."

Barden obviously loves to play basketball, and has since she started playing back in second or third grade. She realizes this is a special season, because it's the last she'll play with her older sister, Cady, a senior who got it all started for her kid sister.

"I like (basketball) because it's competitive," Barden said. "I saw my sister playing and then she kind of tagged me along with her. It's kind of our last year, but I've always loved playing with my sister."

Barden hopes to play college basketball someday, but, as a sophomore, hasn't thought much about it. For now, Barden, her teammates and her coach are looking to use this latest winning streak as the season into the stretch run.

"I think it's a confidence-builder," Freidel said. "It's a cliche, but we need to be getting better every game. Anybody in (Class) AA can beat anybody else on the right night. We need to be playing well on the right nights."

And to be playing well, the Scoopers need Carsey Barden to just keep taking off.