By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
DAYTON, Ore.– The Blanchet Catholic Boys Basketball nearly pulled off what would have been the biggest upset of the young season when they played Cascade Christian to open the Dayton Winter Classic on Saturday.
They didn’t back down to the Challengers, winners of three of the last four 3A State Championships. The Cavaliers matched their intensity. Had their runs that matched that of Cascade Christian’s.
They were locked in as they not just pushed them for the full 32-minutes, but took them to overtime as well.
They turned to their strength in defense and used it to their advantage.
“We just really tried to bring the pressure on them and we were able to do that and hold them back for most of the game, but then they were killing us with a few of those three’s down the stretch there,” said Blanchet Head Coach Hans Rasmussen.
From the start, the Cavs made the statement that they were here to play.
They drew five Challenger fouls within the first 2:20 of the first quarter as they slowly built leads of 8-2 and 14-7 in the opening eight minutes.
Their intensity matched that of Cascade Christian, who have won three of the last 3A State Championships entering this year as they led 14-9 after one led 23-20 at halftime and their lead reached 38-23 by the 4:48 mark of the third quarter.
The Challengers pulled even at 40 early in the fourth quarter, taking advantage of some Blanchet turnovers and turned them into points.
But then Blanchet’s defense clamped down once more and regained not just the lead, but the bulk of the points they lost as they pulled back ahead by 11 with 4:36 left in the game.
The Challengers had one more run led to Cascade Christian to tie the game and eventually forcing overtime where they found that one more shot there at the end to uphend Blanchet’s bid for the upset.
But with the statement, pushing one of the top teams in the classification to the brink, the Cavaliers are hoping that they can build from it. And it’ll be something they’ll be able to do as they’ll play De La Salle North Catholic on Friday and then Catlin Gabel in Saturday.
“That’s what I told the guys, they need to have the confidence built from this because they put themselves in a winning position and that hasn’t been the case for a few years,” starts Rasmussen. “This team has a ton of capability and I think they’ll get better with every fame.”
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
