Madras’ Jackie Zamora and Cascade’s Kelsey Molan battle for the ball as Cascade defeats Madras 43-34 in the first round of the OSAA Class 4A state tournament on Thursday, March 10, 2016, at Forest Grove High School.
Cascade defeats Madras 43-34 in the first round of the OSAA Class 4A state tournament on Thursday, March 10, 2016, at Forest Grove High School.
Cascade defeats Madras 43-34 in the first round of the OSAA Class 4A state tournament on Thursday, March 10, 2016, at Forest Grove High School.
Cascade’s Alyssa St. Peter and the Cougars defeat Madras 43-34 in the first round of the OSAA Class 4A state tournament on Thursday, March 10, 2016, at Forest Grove High School.
Cascade’s Alexis Loukojarvi and Madras’ Lynden Harry as the Cougars defeat Madras 43-34 in the first round of the OSAA Class 4A state tournament on Thursday, March 10, 2016, at Forest Grove High School.
FOREST GROVE — The thing about a team that plays great defense is that it doesn’t always have to have a great game on offense.
Or even a pretty game.
Cascade High School’s No. 1-ranked girls basketball team demonstrated that Thursday afternoon.
The Cougars held a speedy Madras team to 22 percent (10 of 45) from the field and despite having a slow start on offense beat the White Buffaloes 43-34 in the first round of the OSAA Class 4A state tournament at Forest Grove School.
Cascade has been known as a team with offensive dynamos this season, but Halle Wright was held to 14 points and Alyssa St. Peter was held to six points in the game.
That meant Cascade’s mix of full-court press and man-to-man half-court defense had to be suffocating.
“It was pretty important,” Cascade sophomore wing Kirstin Cade said. “I don’t think if we would have had our defense here it would have come to this good of an ending because our offense wasn’t too pretty. Yeah, it’s pretty important.”
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No. 1 seed Cascade (25-1) advances to play No. 4 seed La Grande in Friday’s 1:30 p.m. semifinal round at Liberty High School in Hillsboro.
It is the second straight year in which Cascade has been in the semifinal round.
“Not our best performance,” Cascade coach Mark Stevens said. “Fortunately today we still won, we move forward.”
Though Cascade would finish the game 42 percent from the field (19 of 45), the team combined for two field goals in the first quarter and trailed 7-4 after one quarter.
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The up-tempo game of Madras (18-7) impacted the Cougars early and even though Cascade wasn’t getting much off their full-court press, they kept at it.
Wright’s lay-in with 51 seconds left in the first half gave Cascade its first lead at 17-15.
“I thought more than anything else, his kids got tired,” Stevens said. “I think he only played five, he may have had a sixth get a minute or two. I’m playing 10, and we put them on the free throw line too much in the first half.”
Cascade started the second half on a 4-0 run, then finally got rolling late in the third quarter with a 6-0 run capped by Karen Miller’s putback basket to go up 27-18.
It was a different Cougars team to start the fourth quarter.
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Cascade converted consecutive three-point plays by Wright, Molan and Chrystal Wilson on three straight possessions and was up 38-22 with 6:25 left.
Finally, the Cascade team that had won its previous 24 games consecutively had shown up.
“I think that we were finishing a lot better,” Cade said. “We had like three and ones in a row, and we were finishing on free throws and that got us going.”
bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com, (503) 399-6701 or Twitter.com/bpoehler