The Cascade Champions upset the fourth-ranked Grundy County Yellow Jackets on Saturday, 62-53, in a huge statement road win in district play.
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The Cascade Champions went into Saturday’s matchup against the fourth-ranked Grundy County Yellow Jackets in dire straits, and they were on the verge of making the wrong kind of history.
Coming into their third district game of the season, the Cascade Champions were looking to avoid starting 0-3 in district play for the first time this century, and they had to do it against a 13-1 Grundy County team and their star in Sam Parsons.
With their backs against the wall after having struggled to find an identity for much of the season, Coach Chris Lawson’s team came out with perhaps their best performance of the campaign, knocking off the Yellow Jackets, 62-53, behind a dominant second-half team performance.
Parsons ended the game with a game-high 25 points, but the Cascade defense gave him all sorts of problems after he scored 17 in the first half. More importantly, the Champions did not allow any of Parsons’ teammates to get to double digits, maintaining their defensive intensity at an elite level for all 32 minutes.
Grundy County came in scoring almost 70 points-per-game on average while only allowing 48 points-per-game defensively, albeit against weaker competition, but Cascade blew both of those averages out of the water.
It didn’t look that way in the first half though, as a frenetic and fast-paced first quarter ended with Grundy County up 21-16. The good news for Cascade is that after the opening eight minutes, they were easily handling the hosts’ full court pressure, able to quickly pass the ball up the court to continually get into a three-on-two break that ended in an easy layup. Those layups seemed to almost always be scored by Saebyn Burris, who ended the first half with 16 points.
Grundy County started to assert themselves offensively in the second quarter with Parsons continuously attacking the basket and getting to the free throw line. After missing his first two free throws, he connected on his next seven from the charity stripe and ended the first half with 17 points.
The Yellow Jackets looked like they were about to run away with the game late in the second quarter, going up by ten points with less than three minutes left. However, Cascade showed some moxy, closing the first half with a run of their own. The Champions would go into the locker room down by only two points, 38-36, after Saebyn Burris scored his 16th point of the afternoon with a floater at the buzzer.
Cascade went into the locker room with all the momentum and confidence, and they came out in the second half the same way they closed the first. Their defense held Grundy County to six points in the third quarter with Parsons only hitting two free throws, and the Champions’ offense did just enough to take a 47-44 lead going into the final frame.
As Cascade began to assert themselves in the fourth quarter, frustrating Parsons defensively and attacking him and Grundy’s porous interior defense relentlessly while on offense. Isaac McElroy, who played his best all-around game of the new year, was the ringleader of the Cascade attack in the second half, and Grundy County had nobody that could stay in front of him.
Cascade held Grundy to nine points in the fourth quarter with six of them coming in the final two minutes from Parsons. By that point, the result was all but decided in favor of the Champions, and once the final buzzer sounded, Cascade’s 62-53 victory was confirmed.
Parsons was the only Yellow Jacket in double figures, finishing with a game-high 25 points in the loss.
Cascade’s Saebyn Burris played by far his best game of the season, finishing with a team-high 20 points and multiple steals. McElroy was the other Champion in double figures, chipping in with 15 points. Henry Stone added eight points, and freshman Wickey Parker had seven points with two charges taken in the win.
Grundy County falls to 13-2 (1-1) and is scheduled to travel to Van Buren in a non-district matchup on Tuesday, weather permitting.
Cascade improves to 6-13 (1-1) and looks to build off this huge win as they are currently scheduled to continue district play in Chapel Hill on Tuesday night LIVE on WZNG Radio, The Zinger 100.9 and AM 1400, weather permitting.
