Carson Henningsgard remembers vividly the night his oldest sister, Jessica, scored the 1,000th point of her high school basketball career.
"A bunch of the varsity boys basketball players were wearing t-shirts with numbers on them counting down to 1,000,'' he said. "Every time Jess scored a point, I'd mark the number off on one of the players' shirts. It was exciting. Not everyone gets to 1,000 points.''
Not everyone-unless they're members of the Henningsgard family.
Carson was in the stands watching when sisters Jessica, then Taylor, then Kennedy reached 1,000 points. He was kneeling in front of the scorer's table, waiting to be subbed into the game, when his brother and then-teammate Kyle reached 1,000 points.
And Saturday-nine years to the day that Jessica Henningsgard scored No. 1,000-Carson scored 33 points against Central Cass, boosting the youngest of the five siblings to a career total of 1,013 points.
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"It got to be a goal,'' Carson, a junior on the Hillsboro-Central Valley team, said. "Everyone else in my family did it. I wanted to. But if I didn't make it, that wouldn't have been a big deal. I like that our team is winning more than my individual points. And I want to beat my brother's school assist record.''
Carson Henningsgard has all the tools to excel.
He's averaging 23.3 points a game this season on the 12-1, No. 1-ranked Burros team. That is up slightly from his 19.9 average a year ago when he was selected to the Class B first team all-state team.
That completed a sweep in which all five siblings gained basketball all-state honors.
The 6-foot-2 guard's other numbers this season include averages of 5 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 3.7 steals per game, 36 percent accuracy on 3-point attempts and 54 percent accuracy overall.
"If Carson wanted to score 30 points a game, he could,'' H-CV coach Elliot Rotvold said. "But he doesn't have to for our team to do well. You don't see a lot of kids average 6 to 8 assists. He's a willing and able passer.''
Since Rotvold became the coach of the Burros' program in the 1997-98 season, "I've never had a player with the combination of scoring and playmaking abilities Carson has. We've had good scorers. We've had good playmakers. We've had kids who could do both well. But I haven't had anybody who does both at the level Carson does.''
Of his four siblings, Rotvold said, Carson's game probably most resembles that of Taylor. "She controlled games,'' Rotvold said. "She could score and was a pretty darn good passer. And she had that ability to take over games like Carson can.''
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Taylor is the family record holder with 1,651 points. Carson is on a pace to exceed that. But the junior already has the advantage in one regard in the family.
All five siblings played in a Class B state basketball tournaments. The three sisters were teammates and starters on the Central Valley team that played in the 2011 state tournament. Kyle as a senior was starting point guard and Carson a top reserve on the Burros' 2017 state championship team
Carson is the only one of the five to be a part of two state championship basketball teams after the Burros repeated last season.
"That's more of a team accomplishment,'' the junior said. "And team accomplishments feel a lot better than any individual accomplishments.''
Henningsgard honor roll
Here are the career point totals achieved by the five Henningsgard siblings. The year of graduation is in parentheses.
• Taylor Henningsgard: (2013) 1,651 points
• Jessica Henningsgard: (2011) 1,587 points
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• Kennedy Henningsgard: (2014): 1,556 points
• Kyle Henningsgard: (2017) 1,315 points
• Carson Henningsgard: (2020) 1,013 points.
