Champs close 9-A season with 'W'

Cascade's Albert Hatchett (24) looks for a passing lane in traffic. (T-G Photo by Danny Parker) [Click to enlarge]

MURFREESBORO -- Cascade had little on the line for their final District 9-A matchup of the regular season after a pair of Forrest wins locked them into the No. 4 seed in the opening round of the tournament on Feb. 12.

Nevertheless, the Champions sought and received a momentum-building 53-43 victory over host Middle Tennessee Christian thanks to a late second-half surge.

"Any time you can go on the road and win, in this place, it's a good thing," Cascade coach Charlie Pope said. "I've brought teams over here that were probably athletically superior to this one, but we struggled. It's a testimony to this group that they did what we asked them to do offensively and defensively."

The opening 22 minutes consisted of continuous basket trading, including eight lead changes and five ties.

A Matt Henderson 3-pointer with 2:15 showing in the third quarter gave the Champs (8-13, 6-6 9-A) a five-point advantage and they never trailed again.

Cory Phillips came off the bench to net six of his 10 points in a fourth quarter owned by Cascade, who outscored the Cougars 16-9 down the stretch.

"We've got a pretty deep team," Pope said. "So, it was nothing that we did differently. We just kept wearing 'em down and wearing 'em down and wearing 'em down.

"We knew we were getting them in foul trouble. They had guys with 2-3 fouls in the first half. We knew, as long as we kept pounding, pounding, pounding that we had a good chance."

Jacob Carkuff joined Phillips in double figures for the visitors with 10 points. All 10 Champs who saw floor time scored.

Taylor Beckham paced all scorers with 20 points for MTC (8-13, 2-10).

The hosts took the lead first but Cascade finished the opening period up 10-8.

Champion Albert Hatchett snuck in a bucket high off the glass as the buzzer sounded signaling the end of the first half to knot matters at 22-all.

Six Champs scored in the third period and they advanced to the final frame up 37-34.

Champion guard Jacob Carkuff gets a shot off over MTC's Logan Siler. (T-G Photo by Danny Parker) [Click to enlarge]

Cascade celebrates senior night on Friday as Hatchett, Phillips, Nick Batts, Nolan Spencer, Ryan Morton and Josh Brandon will all be honored. Their opponent is Region 5-A rival and third-ranked Nashville Christian.

"We want to send these seniors out on a good note, regular-season wise, and continue carrying momentum into the tournament," Pope said. "We might see (Nashville Christian) again in the region (tournament). So, you need to feel them out and see what they're about.

"They shoot a lot of 3s and they're good at it. We're going to have to play defense probably better than we have all year long to give ourselves a chance to win that ballgame."

The Champs host neighbor Community on Feb. 12 in the opening round of the District 9-A tournament.

Click here for a tentative look at the bracket.