Shelbyville Times-Gazette: High School Sports: Defensive stand boosts Lady Champ win (02/07/10)

Cascade's Haley Edmondson tries to get a shot to fall with teammate Jessica Popp (22) looking on between Eagleville defenders Jennilee Lenker (34), Lindsey McRee (23) and Hannah Mayes (20).
(T-G Photo by Danny Parker)

[Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

EAGLEVILLE -- The girls teams from Cascade and Eagleville came out firing in the early portion of their District 9-A contest on Friday night with the teams posting a respectable 31 points between them.

The Lady Champion defense turned it up a notch in the second quarter, held the Lady Eagles from making a field goal for over seven minutes and cruised late for a 62-46 win to finish off the regular-season sweep.

"We were running a three-quarter press early," Cascade coach Chad Spencer said, "and we weren't finding out matchups and they were getting some easy looks out of it. So, we got out of that and went back to what we've been working on most of the year, just playing man-to-man (defense). We still made a lot of young, freshman mistakes by getting beat off the dribble and stuff like that, but I thought our man-to-man defense, for the most part, did pretty good."

The Eagleville (8-13, 3-10 9-A) scoring drought led to 12 unanswered points by the Lady Champions (16-8, 8-6), who took a 27-14 lead.

A 3-pointer and a 3-point play from Tiffani Grogan in the final 1:13 of the second quarter helped Cascade maintain a 33-20 halftime advantage.

Six different Lady Champions scored in the third period. Grogan beat the buzzer by stepping up to the 3-point arc and knocking down a shot to help her team enter the fourth up 49-35.

Elora Skuce and Haley Edmondson joined Grogan in knocking down a pair of 3s apiece to give the Orange and Black seven of their eight treys in the first 24 minutes.

"We shared the ball pretty good tonight," Spencer said. "They started out playing us in a 2-3 zone, and we've been working on that a lot here lately. We shot the ball good and hit eight 3-pointers. That will get anybody out of a zone."

In all, 21 players saw time on the hardwood as both coaches emptied their benches late.

M.K. Potts paced Cascade with 14 points and five rebounds. Grogan totaled 13 points and eight boards. Jessica Popp provided 12 points and six rebounds.

Jennilee Lenker topped Eagleville in scoring with 15 points. Kelsie Barnes added 12 and Julia Adamowicz 10.

The Lady Champs face East Robertson for Senior Night on Tuesday at 6.