Quick start propels Champs past MTC

MURFREESBORO -- The Cascade Champions didn't waste any time jumping on host Middle Tennessee Christian on Friday night. The Champs jumped out to a 10-point first-quarter lead, never trailed and won going away 69-49.

Following a slow start to the season, where Cascade would rest come January was anybody's guess. With the first half of the District 9-A schedule concluded, the Champs (8-6, 5-1 9-A) are sitting pretty atop the standings alongside Eagleville.

"I don't want to say that we've exceeded expectations because I saw back during the summer that we had a chance to be special," Pope said. "Now, how many wins that would translate to this year I didn't know. Nobody can predict that kind of thing.

"We felt like we would have a chance at least to compete for an opportunity in the district tournament. There's no way that I would have thought at this point that we'd be where we are."

More specifically, it was tough to gauge how the Champs would do against MTC since losing a heartbreaker in overtime to Community by a single point on Tuesday night for their lone 9-A loss.

"I had some question as to how we'd bounce back after that tough loss with it being such a hard-fought game, in-county rivalry," Cascade coach Charlie Pope said. "To their credit, they responded like I had hoped. They stepped up, competed, played hard. We were very efficient early, shared the ball, made some shots."

The Champs put forth a quality night of shooting and took care of the ball. They sank 30-of-54 shots (55 percent) from the field and totaled a mere seven turnovers.

Gerald "Happy" Johnson enjoyed his most productive quarter of the season. The junior post scored 10 points in the opening quarter to help Cascade to an 18-10 lead.

A pair of Ricky Hord 3-pointers paced the visitors in the second frame to help them extend their upper hand to 37-22.

Hord and Jacob Carkuff combined for 14 of their team's 24 points in the third frame to propel them to a 61-36 advantage with the final quarter looming.

Carkuff led all scorers with 19 points. Hord totaled 15. Johnson finished with 12 points, six rebounds and three steals.

Killen Middleton paced the Cougars (8-10, 3-3) with 12 points.

Next for Cascade is a rare home game.They battle district foe Boyd Christian on Tuesday evening.

"The good news is, now we get to play at home a little bit. The bad news is, I don't know how we'll respond to playing at home," said Pope, who noted his team must change their routine after several bus rides to start the year.