By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
FOREST GROVE, Ore.– Cascade-Philomath Part III lived up to the hype once again as the two Oregon West Conference teams met for the 4A Fourth-Place game on Saturday morning.
Early on in the game, it looked as if the Cougars would pull away from the Warriors. The Cougars led 19-11 with 5:21 left until halftime following a jumpshot by Olivia Bennett. Fatigue seemed as if it caught up to the Warriors with both teams on their third tough game in as many days.
Philomath began to rally after a Jordyn Hood three-pointer at the 4:25 mark, and the Warriors closed the half on a 9–3 run to cut the Cougars’ lead to 22–20 at halftime. And from there, the game resembled that of their two previous meetings with it coming down to execution.
For the Cougars, they rose to the occasion in their final game of the season.
“It came down to executing in the moment. We used to struggle with executing in the moment, but this time we picked it up when it meant the most,” said Rozalyn Schmunk
For the seniors like Schmunk, Olivia Bennett and Cassidy Crabtree, Saturday marked their final game in a Cougar uniform. And they wanted to go out on top as they and the Warriors went to battle one last time during the second half.
“I’ve played with so many of these girls since I was super little, like elementary school and I just love them so much,” said Schmunk. “I just don’t know, it’s just a great feeling that our last game was a win all together and good team ball.”
Neither team let the other out of their reach coming down the stretch.
Cascade pushed their lead to 24-20 early in the third quarter, only to see the Warriors go on a 10-0 run to take a lead. A 9-0 run by the Cougars pulled them ahead 33-30 with 1:52 left in the third quarter. The Warriors led 34-33 after three quarters.
In the fourth quarter the two squads were just trading buckets with one another.
“Our teammates hit some clutch shots, we all came ready to play and them coming back flipped the switch for us that we really need to step up, it’s not over. They’re here to win and they’re here to fight too,” said Pearl Pruett. “It’s always like that with them, I knew it was going to be close no matter what.”
Pruett would have the final say in this one as with 17 seconds left, coming out of a timeout, the junior hit a go-ahead basket that put the Cougars ahead 43-42. But there was little time for celebration as they had to go back on defense.
“My team helped a whole lot, they had my back no matter what. I knew it was going in no matter what, I had the confidence with my team and even if I didn’t make it, we would’ve locked in on D,” said Purett of the shot.
The Cascade defense got a stop with four seconds remaining and were able to burn the final seconds of the game off the clock to clinch the one-point victory to finish fourth in 4A.
“That was probably the toughest defense we had to play because we knew we couldn’t let them take another shot, get a steal or anything like that. We had to keep it and play our ball,” Schmunk said of that final defensive stand.
Pruett finished the game with 14 points, Schmunk finished the game with 10 points and nine rebounds. Lainey Klampe filled up the stat sheet with five points, five assists and four rebounds in the victory.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
