By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore. After the heartbreak of their Capitol City Classic opening round defeat to Western Christian on Thursday, the Cascade Girls Basketball team bounced back with a 44-34 victory over Sprague Saturday afternoon.
Having played the Olympians during Fall Ball and having been defeated, the Cougars were motivated in the CCC game to get revenge on their 6A opposition. And with Sprague hanging around, trailing by one possession into the fourth quarter, the Cougars made their move, turned to their defense, and began to pull away from the Olys.
“We didn’t play our game that game (against Western Christian), they got out and ran us. There’s nothing we can do about it. So we bounced back in this Sprague game,”said Cascade’s Olivia Bennett. “This game meant a lot to us. We weren’t going to lose to them again. We came out like we’re supposed to, starting with our defense. We put in a new defense and run them that.
“They’re a competitive team. They can compete with us. They know what we can bring, we know what they can bring…our goal was to shut down Carly (Skogstad), and as long as we did that , we’ll come out and win this game.”
Skogstad finished with 13 points in the game with Lucy Jones, contributing another seven in the game. Sprague has found themselves in both of their Capitol City Classic games, losing to Newberg 41-39 on the opening night of the Camry Bracket of the tournament on Thursday. Now, with Central on Sunday at 2pm, they’re hoping to finish the tournament out with a win.
“We need to play together. We need to be vocal and play our hardest together. That’s been a struggle at half of both games so far,” starts Skogstad. “We’ve been able to catch up, but not fully. We just need to get ahead from the get-go and play like we usually play.”
Rozalyn Schmunk led Cascade with 15 points, Bennett contributed another 14 in the victory as the Cougars will play McNary for fourth place in the Camry Bracket.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
