The Cascade Champions used a 25-1 first quarter to run away with an important District 9-AA clash, 64-29, in Chapel Hill on Tuesday.
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It was a complete domination from start to finish for the suddenly surging Cascade Champions on Tuesday night as they went on the road to defeat the Forrest Rockets, 64-29.
Zach Crosslin led the Champs with 12 points and was the only player to reach double-figures, but the balanced attack across the board was the story offensively. Tucker McGee scored nine points, Wickey Parker put in nine points, and Saebyn Burris and Logan Pulley chipped in with seven points as well.
For the Rockets, their leading scorer coming in, Ben Villazon, was held to just eight points on very inefficient shooting to lead Forrest in scoring. Cascade put on a clinic defensively, forcing the hosts into tough mid-range pull-ups almost too many times to count.
The high-level man-to-man defense combined with a clinical zone offense against Chapel Hill’s 2-3 zone led the Champions to an incredible 25-1 lead after the opening quarter. The result was well in hand moving forward, but Cascade did not take their foot off the gas.
Things didn’t fare much better for Chapel Hill in the second quarter either, but they did finally manage to put in a couple of field goals, scoring eight points in the frame. Nevertheless, Cascade put in 12 points of their own to go into the halftime locker room on top, 37-9.
Forrest would muster up 20 points total in the second half, but it was not even close to being enough as the Champs would continue to extend their lead on the road. The fourth quarter began with Cascade on top, 52-23, and the final frame quickly ushered in the ends of the benches for both teams.
It was an impressive win by Cascade. Despite coming in with a 3-16 record overall, Chapel Hill’s first two home district contests were extremely tight games; they lost to Grundy County, 56-50, to open district play, but then turned around and beat Community, 53-50, on the heels of an incredible second half comeback.
Despite all this, Chris Lawson’s team ran the Rockets out of the gym, and the Champs seem to be finding their groove at the perfect time with two weeks before they are set to host the district tournament.
Forrest falls to 3-17 (1-4) on the season, and are set to travel to Community on Friday night to continue district play.
Cascade improves to 8-14 (3-3) overall, and are scheduled to take a momentary pause on Friday night as they travel to Santa Fe to take on the number one team in the state for Class-A, LIVE on WZNG The Zinger 100.9 and AM 1400 starting at 5:45 p.m.
