CHAPEL HILL, Tenn. – The Cascade Champions (15-9, 4-3) completed the season sweep over District 9-AA foe Chapel Hill (6-18, 0-6) on Friday, 55-35, after closing out the fourth quarter on an extended 16-2 run.

After Josiah Willis scored his 10th point of the night on a layup to punctuate an 11-2 run from the Rockets, Cascade lead was suddenly trimmed to just six points, 39-33, with 5:08 left in the fourth quarter. Then, Cooper McElroy took over. The sophomore forward stepped behind the arc on the right wing and swished home a monstrous 25-footer to go back up by nine with 4:35 to go. 

On Cascade’s next possession, Kelso knocked down one of his two made triples of the night to force a timeout from Chapel Hill’s Robbie Davis. Coming out of the timeout, Tyler Rodgers forced an Elijah Leverette turnover, prompting a runout that Henry Stone could capitalize on. Then, McElroy put the final dagger through the Rockets with yet another right-wing three-pointer, and all of a sudden what was a six-point game had ballooned to a 17-point lead with 2:40 remaining, 50-33, behind an 11-0 run that took just under three minutes to complete. 

Cascade's Cooper McElroy (14) launches a first-half three-pointer in Friday's win at Chapel Hill. McElroy finished with a game-high 20 points on an efficient 7-of-11 shooting while grabbing three rebounds, dishing out four assists, and swiping two steals.

David Smith

“He [McElroy] has hit big shots all season,” Cascade head coach Doug Worsley said postgame, “I got onto him early on because I thought his shot selection wasn’t very good, but then I thought he did a very good job as the game went on finding and making the right play. We know he has the range out there. Once he sees the first one go through, he’s extremely confident.”

In all, McElroy finished with a game-high 20 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the field, including 5-of-8 from downtown. He also pulled down three rebounds, dished out four assists, and swiped a pair of steals on the night.

With the win, Cascade officially locks up the No. 3 seed for the District 9-AA Tournament. 

“We just told the guys to come out and do our job,” said Worsley, “We can’t control what other people do, we know we can control what we can do, and the message was to take care of business so we lock up No. 3 at least. We just had to stay focused, we knew that there would be adversity and that some things were not going to go our way, and sure enough, we struggled to score for long stretches tonight. They just kept plugging away at it, and sure enough we pull away in the fourth.”

Early on, the Rockets came out inspired following their pregame senior night festivities. Chapel Hill managed to tie the game up at 10 at the end of the opening period, but then Cascade put the hammer down in the second quarter. The Champions outscored the hosts 22-8 in the period, punctuated by a Tristin Billings 15-foot buzzer-beater to close out the first half and send the visitors into the locker room with a 32-18 lead. Billings finished the night with 10 first-half points.

Coming out for the second half, the Champions only managed to score five points in the third quarter. The Rockets outscored the visitors, 10-5, to trim the lead to just 37-28 before finding a way to cut the deficit to just six points 90 seconds into the final frame.

Henry Stone finished with an important 11 points for Cascade, and the Champions forced 25 Chapel Hill turnovers in the win, turning those into 19 points. The Rockets went just 1-of-6 from downtown on the night while Cascade nailed nine triples, seven of them coming from Kelso and McElroy combined.

The Champions improve to 15-9 overall. Cascade takes a momentary pause from district action with a non-district trip to No. 1 Eagleville on Tuesday, LIVE on The Zinger 100.9 and AM 1400 starting at 5:45 p.m.

CASCADE: C. McElroy 20 (5), H. Stone 11, T. Billings 10 (2), K. Kelso 6 (2), R. Pilkington 2, T. Rodgers 2, N. Watson 2, Z. Swaggerty 2.

CHAPEL HILL: J. Hightower 11 (1), J. Willis 10, A. Myers 8, J. Doud 4, H. Matlock 2.