Little goes right for Lady Champs

Cascade's Jessica Popp (40) reaches for a loose ball with MTC's Katie Dunn (20). (T-G Photo by Danny Parker) [Click to enlarge]

MURFREESBORO -- Little to nothing went right for Cascade's girls as they hit the self-destruct button and fell 68-46 to host Middle Tennessee Christian in each team's District 9-A regular season finale on Tuesday night.

Any hopes of getting revenge against the school that ended their season a year ago were squashed quickly as the talented Lady Cougars jumped out to a 16-2 lead in the first five minutes.

"At the start of the game, we turned the ball over entirely too much and dug ourselves in a hole we couldn't get out of," Cascade coach Chad Spencer said.

"They're so much bigger than us we play man (defense), but when we help off to double the post, they kick it back out and shoot a 3. They didn't really kill us as much from the 3-point line as they did on baskets in transition."

Middle Tennessee Christian (17-6, 9-3 9-A) continued their dominance in a second quarter that included an 11-0 run, which ended with a Katie Mullins 3-pointer with 3:13 left in the half that put her squad ahead 32-10.

Millie Carter netted all four of her four points at the free-throw line in the second frame, including a pair 1.6 seconds before halftime to trim the MTC advantage to 37-17.

"They keyed on Millie (Carter) and she wasn't able to get many shots off," Spencer said. "Coming into the game, she was leading the district in 3-point shots. They took her out of her game completely."

The Lady Champs didn't have a girl make a shot behind the arc.

Mullins added the finishing touches to her game-leading 22 points with eight more in the third period. However, teammate Katie Dunn stole the show by netting her 1,000th career point in the frame. She finished with 17 points, including a 5-for-5 night at the line.

Not to be outdone, Amy Mullins hit all six of her free throw attempts and totaled 18 points to give the Lady Cougar trio a combined 57 points.

Michelle Bauman did her best to resuscitate Cascade (9-13, 4-8) in the third with nine of her 13 points, but the advantage only swelled to 56-35 entering the fourth.

The last period wasn't much different from the opening 24 minutes. The Lady Champs shot themselves in the foot time and time again with ill-advised passes and silly fouls.

"My girls have such a bad habit of when they miss a shot, trying to steal it 90 feet away from the basket," Spencer said. "When you're a point guard or a two-guard not getting back on defense, you're putting your team in an uncompromising spot because they're running the floor on you. They got numerous transition baskets on us."

Cascade hopes to rebound on Friday night and send lone senior Chelsea Calvert out with a victory in her final game in Wartrace. Tiffany Gibbs should be able to give the home crowd more reason to cheer as she is on the cusp of reaching the 1,000-point plateau for her career.

The game with Region 5-A foe Nashville Christian is scheduled to tip off at 6 p.m. It should be a tune-up for Monday evening's 9-A tournament elimination game at Community.

"We're not going to take a day off until we're done playing basketball," Spencer said. "We want to win in front of our home crowd and get us a little momentum going into the first (tournament) game against Community, which will be a rival game."

Click here for a tentative look at the bracket.