Lady Champs' lesson: Snooze and you lose

Lady Champion Tiffany Gibbs scoops in a bucket past Cougar defender Samantha Barrett. (T-G Photo by Danny Parker) [Click to enlarge]

Somebody forgot to turn out the lights and inform Cascade that the party was over following their 11-point win over rival Community on Tuesday.

The Lady Champions sleep-walked onto the floor, scoring but one basket in the first quarter, and never woke up in an embarrassing 57-36 loss to visiting Middle Tennessee Christian on Friday night.

"I knew today at the shootaround that they weren't ready to play," Cascade coach Chad Spencer said. "I told the coaches I was worried about that. We put out so much intensity and emotion the other night, I was afraid we wouldn't be able to get up to that same level tonight, and I was right.

"Instead of coaching basketball, it was coaching effort. You ask any coach in the country what's more fun to do and they'll say coaching basketball."

Spencer unloaded the bench in the second quarter and the substitutes narrowed a 16-3 deficit to 20-14 after Ashley Bledsoe's basket with 4:14 on the clock.

"Our reserves came in and did a great job," Spencer said. "They were the ones that got us back in the ballgame."

The Lady Cougars (13-5, 5-1) answered the challenge with a 17-1 run and entered the final period up 46-31. Millie Carter's 3-pointer 2 seconds before the horn signaling the end of the third accounted for the only points Cascade (5-9, 2-4) could muster until Tiffany Gibbs drained a trey with 2:39 to go in the game.

"We don't communicate on defense," Spencer said. "We were so out of it, there were times where I would have 2-3 girls running 2-3 different offenses."

The Lady Champion coach may have found a productive option coming off the bench in Michelle Bauman.

Michelle Bauman gets off a shot for Cascade over the top of MTC's Lindsey Lee (44) and Samantha Barrett. (T-G Photo by Danny Parker) [Click to enlarge]

"Michelle Bauman came in and gave us a pretty good spark. She shot free throws better than anybody we had tonight that went to the line."

Bauman's effort at the charity stripe did not rub off on her teammates. She sank 6-of-8 but the rest of the squad was a meager 4-for-12.

"You can't win basketball games missing 10 free throws."

MTC didn't have to vary their offensive sets much to get points on the board, wreaking havoc by picking for players off the elbow down to the block on the right-hand side of the lane for layup after layup.

Those field goals came on top of numerous easy baskets in transition.

"We just did not come out read to play," Spencer said in disbelief. "We were dragging around.

"Some of this stuff I just don't even understand. I've got to do a better job of teaching the game of basketball. We've got to be coachable out of timeouts."

Katie Mullins was top scorer for the Murfreesboro girls with 13. Amy Mullins followed with 11 and Katie Dunn 10.

Gibbs scored in all four quarters and finished with 13.

Cascade hopes to right the ship on Tuesday when they face Boyd Christian in McMinnville at 6.