CHAPEL HILL, Tenn. – After falling down 23-18 to start the second half, the No. 7 ranked Cascade Lady Champions (19-6, 6-1) closed the third quarter on a 17-2 run to eventually knock out Chapel Hill (15-10, 0-6) in a defensive affair on Friday night, 43-29.

Celebrating senior night pregame, John Wild’s Lady Rockets came out from the jump extremely physical while in a box-and-one, intending to make everything as difficult as possible for Cascade’s Miss Basketball contender, Kaegan Young, who came into the game averaging more than 18 points per game on the season. Chapel Hill held Young to just 12 points for the game, and only four in the opening half.

Cascade's Kaegan Young (22) resets the offense in the fourth quarter of Friday's win over the Lady Rockets. Young finished with a tough 12 points, including eight in the second half, to go along with three steals.

David Smith

“We told the girls in the locker room after the game that we are the one seed and that level of physicality is what we’re going to continue to see every single night,” Lady Champions’ head coach Janie Demonbreum said postgame, “Everybody wants to take you off that pedestal and wants to knock you down, and everybody is going to be super physical with you. It just speaks to the character and the focus of my girls on how they hold their composure. I know we made some crazy passes at times, and we were all flustered in that first quarter, but we were able to settle ourselves down and make some offensive adjustments to pull off this win. Any time you play John Wild it’s going to be tough, you know he’s going to scheme up something. He’s great for a reason, and I’m just glad to come out with a win.”

Chapel Hill held Cascade to just three points in the opening period, frustrating the visitors and their supporters alike with extreme levels of physicality, but the Lady Rockets could muster up eight points themselves. In the second, the Lady Champions outscored the hosts, 15-10, to draw level at 18 heading into the halftime locker room. 

In the third quarter, Chapel Hill re-took the lead, 23-18, about 90 seconds into the period before Cascade responded with a massive 17-2 run. It started innocently enough with Caroline Parker splitting a pair of free throws immediately followed by a Kaegan Young three-pointer as the Lady Rockets switched to a 3-2 zone. Wild called for time, and he drew up a brilliant baseline-out-of-bounds set for a Kaylin Pope layup to go back up by three, 25-22, with 4:35 remaining, not knowing that would be his team’s final points of the quarter. 

One minute later, Lexi Comstock found Jocelyn Laughlin wide open in the right corner for three of her 12 points on the night to tie the game up at 25 with 3:15 to go.

Cascade's Jocelyn Laughlin (25) knocks down the first of her two made triples in Friday's win at Chapel Hill. Laughlin finished with 12 points, four rebounds, four assists, and two steals.

David Smith

On the Lady Champs’ next possession, Young knocked down a baseline 16-footer to take the lead. After Laughlin knocked down a pair at the line, Suzanna Crews found Parker wide open from downtown at the top of the key to extend the lead to 32-25 with 1:05 remaining. 

“Both of them [Caroline Parker and Jocelyn Laughlin] were huge,” said Demonbreum, “When Caroline comes down and knocks down those two threes, Jo is hitting a three, it’s just huge and gives them more confidence in their offensive game. Again, it goes to show that sometimes knocking Kaegan [Young] out isn’t the answer to beating us.  They stepped up when we needed them to step up, and that was big for us.”

Parker would knock down three more of her game-high 15 points from almost the same spot on the next possession, and all of a sudden what was a five-point Lady Rocket lead flipped around into a 10-point lead for the Lady Champions heading into the final frame.

“In that run, we made the extra passes and settled ourselves down,” Demonbreum said, “I thought at one point, we were jacking too many threes, but when we were able to have some cutters, make the skip pass, and just make the right read, we were able to be more successful. We just had to chill out and step up to knock down shots and we were able to do that to make that run.”

Cascade outscored the Lady Rockets, 8-4, in the fourth quarter to hold on and by 14, locking up the No. 1 seed in the upcoming District 9-AA Tournament beginning on Feb. 16 with a game to spare following Summertown’s loss to Community on Saturday.

The Lady Champions improve to 19-6 overall. Cascade takes a momentary pause from district action with a non-district trip to Eagleville on Tuesday, LIVE on The Zinger 100.9 and AM 1400 starting at 5:45 p.m.

CASCADE: C. Parker 15 (2), K. Young 12 (1), J. Laughlin 12 (2), J. Tolar 3, S. Crews 1.

CHAPEL HILL: B. Stalnecker 10, C. Warner 7, J. Brown 6 (2), S. Smith 2, C. Smith 2.