By WILL CARTER ~ Sports Writer
The Cascade Champion offense was firing on all cylinders on Friday night, but the Grundy County Yellow Jackets didn’t go down without a fight.
Led by Justis Carter’s 28 and Lucas Clanton’s 22 points, the Champions found themselves in the win column for their third-straight game with a final score of 74-66.
Carter asserted his dominance in the paint early in the contest as he put eight first quarter points on the board.
He carried that momentum for the duration of the contest.
“In my opinion we have the best player in the district on our team,” Champion coach Chris Lawson said.
“He's (Carter) about 6’5” and he's got great footwork on the inside. So anytime we have an advantage with that, we dump it off to him. He went to work in a variety of ways tonight.”
The Champions put 22 points on the board in the first frame, but the Yellow Jackets kept it close after back-to-back 3-pointers in the final minute pushed them to an 18 point quarter.
Sam Parsons led the Yellow Jackets with 26 points, nine of which came in the first quarter.
Aside from Parsons, Jr. Crisp was the only other scorer in double-digits with 11.
“No. 15 (Parsons) for them is a good player and he knocked down shots tonight,” Lawson said.
“He was able to get to the rim and get some offensive rebounds. He gave them a chance to be in the game.”
To open the second quarter, the Yellow Jackets forced a stop defensively that turned into a made 3-pointer on the other end — their third consecutive make from beyond the arc.
Lawson called for a timeout and the Champions tightened up defensively allowing only eight more points in the quarter.
Carter and Clanton carried the offensive load for the Champions, combining for 12 of the team’s 18 points in the quarter.
Going into halftime, the Champions held onto a 40-29 lead.
The third frame was much of the same for Cascade, but the Yellow Jackets’ offense turned it up a notch on their way to a 25-point quarter.
The Champions matched their first quarter total of 22 on the back of Carter’s 12 and Clanton’s eight.
“We've worked hard all season on defense and how to guard. Here lately we've focused more on offense and scoring,” Lawson said.
“We started pushing the tempo a little bit. This is the third or fourth game in a row to do that and push it.”
The Champions pushed the ball for the entire game which led to a lot of easy baskets inside the paint.
Of their 74 total points, only 12 came from shots beyond the arc.
After a back-and-forth finish, the Champions walked away with another District 7-AA win and their sights set on the district tournament.
“We’re in the driver’s seat of the district right now. I told those guys in there that Grundy County is in fourth place, and that's not an easy first game. It's not gonna be handed to us,” Lawson said.
“We kind of have our sights set on the district tournament, so we have to fine tune some things in these last few games.”
Next on the schedule for the Champions is a non-district matchup with the Smyrna Bulldogs on the road.
Cascade 22 18 22 12 — 74
Grundy Co. 18 11 25 12 — 66
Cascade: Justis Carter 28, Lucas Clanton 22, Jackson Davis 10, Isaac McElroy 9, Thomas Gentry 3, Jayden Gulick 2.
Grundy Co.: Sam Parsons 26, JR Crisp 11, Austin Higgins 9, Gavin Hobbs 7, Isaac Campbell 5, Alex Parsons 4, Jordan Nance 4.
3-Point goals: Cascade (4): Clanton 3, McElroy. Grundy Co.(7): Crisp 3, Sam Parsons 2, Campbell, Hobbs.
Halftime score: Cascade 40, Grundy Co. 29.
