CARTHAGE — Keyan Pinnock and Peyton McLaurin didn’t buy into the theory that the world was going to end on Friday.

So they and their Carthage teammates prepared for their Frontier League “A” Division boys basketball game against Immaculate Heart Central as they normally would, and it showed.

Pinnock drained seven 3-point field goals and McLaurin shot 10-for-13 from the field as each finished with 21 points to lead the Comets past the Cavaliers, 71-36, at Carthage High School.

“No not at all. I believed there was going to be world peace,” Pinnock said of the end-of-the-world hysteria.

Pinnock, a junior in his second varsity season, made seven of his 10 attempts from beyond the arc. He made five in the first half to help Carthage build a 36-17 lead at the break.

His 21 points were a season high. He scored 20 in Carthage’s last game, against Watertown on Dec. 14, after scoring a combined 15 points in the first five games of the season.

“He’s been a pleasant surprise the last couple games,” Carthage coach Jeff Ventiquattro said. “Keyan’s confidence is sky high right now, and he just adds another threat from the outside. We got a couple nice post players inside that demand double teams. He’s playing with a lot of confidence and they’re doing a nice job getting the ball to him.”

McLaurin, a 6-foot-3 sophomore who transferred from Pennsylvania for the start of the school year, went 10-for-11 after missing his first two shots.

He leads the team with just over 15 points per game, and was coming off his first game in which he didn’t reach double figures.

“We were swinging the ball good, and when I was driving they had to help on Keyan because he kept hitting threes,” McLaurin said.

“He’s very unselfish, at times too unselfish, but he runs our offense very well, knows everything we do and he picked up everything offensively and defensively from day one,” Ventiquattro said. “He’s got some skills and he’s also a very smart player.”

Walter Jeter scored 12 points and added 11 rebounds for Carthage (6-1 overall, 4-1 league).

IHC struggled to score against the length and athleticism of the Carthage defense. The team shot 13-for-55 from the field, and was 8-for-31 in the second half.

“In part it was due to their defense, but we missed a lot of open shots that I’m hopeful we’re going to hit, but not tonight,” IHC coach Mike Delaney said.

The Cavaliers (3-5, 2-4) lost their fourth straight league game, and are 0-3 in the “A” Division following losses to Watertown and Indian River earlier this month.

They were coming off their worst showing of the season, a 64-30 loss to Indian River, on Dec. 14.

“Where we don’t match up well is against teams that are really quick. Indian River is a quick team and Carthage has some quickness and height,” Delaney said. “We’re not going to do very well against teams like that, but we’ll keep plugging away and working hard and hopefully we’ll get better and be a better team at the end of the season than we are right now.”

Jude Whalen’s 15 points led IHC, and Matt Moran added eight.

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