By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore — The Western Christian Girls Basketball Team found a way to get it done against Cascade Thursday night to open the Capitol City Classic at Chemeketa Community College.
They jumped out to a 36-29 lead early in the fourth quarter and weathered the storm presented by the Cougars, Cascade coming back from that six-point deficit to make it a 39-37 deficit with 1:03 left in the game.
“Defensively, we did exactly what we wanted to do, we caused 22 turnovers and really got after them. The rally was huge, I saw the girls play together for about five minutes. We need to string that together for four quarters, though, and that’s one of our biggest issues,” said Cascade Head Coach Nick Randall. “We got to shoot the ball better, and we got to run….but we did see some good things, so hopefully we can build off of that.”
The Pioneers clutched up and got one more stop against the aggressive Cougar squad looking for a comeback victory.
“Coach told us that they’re a fast-paced team, that they got great shooters and their press is really good, so let’s play strong, practice our press break,” said Western Christian’s Haley Ferry. “Ultimately, we believed each other, and we worked together. If we didn’t believe that we would’ve won, we wouldn’t have won today.”
Rozalyn Schmunk led Cascade with 16 points, Olivia Bennett added another ten points, the Cougars play Sprague Saturday at 1pm at Chemeketa Community College Muroya led the Pioneers with 17, and Kylie Sommer contributed another eight for Western. The Pioneers play Newberg at 8:30 pm at Chemeketa Community College.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
