First half play leads to Lady Champion win

Cascade's Tiffani Grogan (5) gets a pass off over CA's Hannah Earl (5). (T-G Photo by Jasen Richardson) [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

COLUMBIA -- Most people were out buying gifts on Black Friday morning. The Cascade Lady Champions gave themselves a gift in their 59-32 victory over Columbia Academy in the Columbia Classic.

Cascade came out strong and took control early with a 21-10 lead after the first stanza.

The Lady Champs' (2-0) defense contained the Lady Bulldogs' (1-3) and enabled turnovers mostly from defensive rebounds and flustering their opponent's offense.

Cascade's Alyssa Hoover (11) jukes Columbia Academy's Emily Holmes (32) before she sinks a basket. (T-G Photo by Jasen Richardson) [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

With 2:52 left in the third quarter, Cascade's Tiffani Grogan gave it her all in a dive into the bleachers to save a loose ball. The play resulted in an injury and a trip to the hospital, but not before she put eight points on the boards.

"The most we hustled all (game) was the play she made diving for the loose ball in the bleachers," Cascade coach Chad Spencer said. "She did fine today, I just hope she is all right."

Cascade did have some issues with offensive rebounds. It was the tale of two rebounding halves of the court.

The Lady Bulldogs notched out 16 points in the half, four of them from the foul line. Even with an stagnant second quarter on offense, the Lady Champs hit the locker rooms with a 30-16 advantage.

"We turned out our offense pretty good," Spencer said. "We were trying to do some things on defense, but some of them miss their assignments. We are a work in progress because we are so young. But I'll take it, it's a win and we can build on that. We'll play a lot of freshmen every night. They are capable of doing it. We are undersized at times. We've got to box out better and go and get the rebound."

The Lady Champs got complacent in the second half, just going through the motions but managing to hold on to what they had built. The Wartrace girls mixed it up a little bit on defense and pressed the Lady Bulldogs with some more intensity.

"When Tiffani got hurt, a lot of girls started to worry about her and we lost some momentum there," Spencer said. "It's hard to come back from seeing one of your players being carried out on a stretcher."

Each of the 10 Lady Champions played and seven scored. M.K. Potts topped the boards in her usual double digits with 21 points, including two 3-pointers. She was 3-of-5 from the charity stripe. Elora Skuce tacked on 11, including two of the squad's seven 3-pointers.

Morgan Jones paced the Lady Bulldogs with 15 points.

The Lady Champs played Donelson Christian Saturday in Columbia. They stay on the road Tuesday night at 6 at Richland.