The Cascade Lady Champions beat the Eagleville Lady Eagles 58-52 in overtime in a non-district matchup on Tuesday night.
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When Eagleville's Meah Thompson stepped to the free throw line with just over five seconds to go in the fourth quarter, the Lady Eagles seemed to have the game in hand. Up by two points and Cascade out of timeouts, all Thompson had to do was make both free throws to send her team back home with a hard-fought non-district road win over the Lady Champions.
Despite stepping up to the charity stripe having already made both of her previous attempts less than 40 seconds ago, Thompson missed the pair, and Sophie Ray corralled the rebound.
Ray took off down the left sideline, knowing she was in a race against time. It was a race that Ray would ultimately win, getting off a left-handed layup that improbably, impossibly even, went through the net as the buzzer sounded.
“Sophie didn’t even know it went in at first,” second-year head coach Janie Demonbreum said with a chuckle.
As exhilarating as that shot was to the entire gymnasium, she had only tied the game at 48. There was still another four minutes to play, and Eagleville still had Isabella Sawyer. She scored 18 points on Tuesday, ending the night tied for the game-high with Cascade star Kaegan Young.
“We talk about closing out games all the time,” Coach Demonbreum said with a massive smile forming across her face.
“We managed to put in that complete game tonight, and it really shows these girls their potential. Our grit won us this ball game.”
Cascade indeed won “this ball game,” outscoring the Lady Eagles 10-4 in overtime to take a split in the season series, 58-52.
The Lady Champs had three players score in double figures with Kaegan Young leading the way with 18 points, six assists, five rebounds, and two steals. “Super” Sophie Ray added 15 points and two steals, and Kaydence Miller scored 14 points, including three huge triples. Suzanna Crews scored nine points and had six rebounds as well as hitting three clutch free throws after Eagleville was assessed two technical fouls late in a frenetic fourth quarter.
Eagleville also had three players eclipse the ten-point mark, led by the aforementioned Isabella Sawyer with 18 points. Brinli Bain scored 14 points, and Shelbie Mooneyham chipped in with 12 points in the losing effort.
“When push comes to shove, we really buckled down, and we found out who the Lady Champions really are,” Coach Demonbreum said.
Cascade, who had a double-digit loss in Eagleville all the way back in November, started the game out well, taking a 14-12 lead after the first frame. In the second quarter, the scoring struggles started to show up for the Lady Champs again as they got outscored 15-8 to go into halftime down 29-26.
Coming out of the locker room, the Lady Champs clamped up defensively, holding the Lady Eagles to five points in a very sluggish third period to tie the game at 34 going into the fourth quarter. Brinli Bain struggled significantly despite scoring 14 points as she went 1/10 from downtown, keeping Cascade within striking distance for much of the second half.
As the fourth quarter wound down, the Lady Eagles held a three point lead with under a minute to go. Cascade was unable to score, and Eliza McClaren came away with the rebound and was fouled. Almost immediately, however, she was assessed a technical foul for allegedly swinging her elbows which incited long-time head coach Chris Lynch. He was understandably upset, but he seemingly crossed the line because he was also slapped with a technical foul.
To compound the problem, McClaren’s technical counted as a personal foul. She already was skating on thin ice with four fouls, so the T gave her a fifth, meaning she was unable to take the free throws. Coach Lynch subbed in Thompson who calmly sank both free throws to extend the lead to five.
Suzanna Crews then stepped up to take the first of what would be four technical free throws for Cascade, calmly sinking three of them to make it a one possession game again with 46.1 seconds left.
“We sent Suzanna to shoot the free throws because she hit her first two earlier in the game,” Coach Demonbreum said, “but I told her, if you don’t make both I’m switching you out. That is a lot of pressure, but she made them anyways.”
Crews split the second pair, but the damage was done, and Cascade was back within striking distance. The Lady Champs got a great look on the ensuing possession from downtown, but it didn’t go down. Eagleville secured the rebound, got fouled, and made both free throws to push the lead back up to four. Sophie Ray would drive and finish a left-handed layup with 7.1 seconds left to cut it back to two, and after Cascade took their final timeout, the rest was history.
The Lady Champions improve to 6-12 (0-2) and will head to Grundy County on Friday night as they resume district play live on The Zinger 100.9 and AM 1400 at 5:45 p.m.
The Lady Eagles fall to 11-7 (0-1) and resume district play against Huntland at home on Friday night.
