Champs' chilly shooting leads to defeat

Culleoka's Antwane Beach (52) grabs a rebound over Cascade's Jacob Carkuff. (T-G Photo by Danny Parker) [Click to enlarge]

CULLEOKA -- The bitterly cold climate carried over to the shooting touch of the Cascade Champions on Monday evening as a 3-for-21 effort from the field in the opening half left them down 26-7 to the Culleoka Classic host Warriors.

The Champs huddled around the locker room bonfire at the half and came out blazing in the third quarter. They outscored a much larger and more experienced Culleoka squad the final two frames, but it wasn't enough to overcome the early deficit and Cascade lost 47-34.

"We expended so much energy in the effort to get back in it in the third quarter, I don't know how much we had for the fourth quarter," Cascade coach Charlie Pope said. "To our kids' credit, they fought hard, and they played hard. We did everything we needed to do, we just did it for three quarters instead of four."

The Warriors (11-1) scored the game's first seven points and extended that advantage to 21-2. T.J. Rippy got the Champs (6-5) their second bucket 10:45 in.

"Part of it was we were getting shots in bad places," Pope said. "They're so long, they contest things so well, and they're well-coached."

Three straight free throws by Jacob Carkuff with 3.4 seconds to go in the third period capped a 12-0 run to get Cascade back in it with them trailing 34-23.

Antwane Beach tallied half of his team-leading 12 points in the last frame to keep the hosts comfortably in front despite Carkuff netting seven of his 15 points in the last seven minutes, including a pair of 3-pointers.

Christian Edmondson contributed five rebounds and four steals to the Champion effort. Rippy hauled in eight boards and Gerald "Happy" Johnson grabbed five.

Chad Stephens matched Antwane Beach's 12 points. Shawn Beach joined his Warrior mates in double figures with 10 points.

Cascade rides back to Culleoka tonight to face another former district rival in Huntland. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30.

"You're looking at contrasting styles of play," Pope said. "Huntland's going to be more our size, more our type of game. They're more deliberate, but they're good.

"We need to come out with more focus at the beginning of the game. That may be some personnel changes, may be some strategy changes, I don't know. We're going to do something to shake that first quarter up. First quarters seem to be our nemesis here lately."