By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

TURNER, Ore.–  The difficulties were there of course.  Playing with eight girls is no easy task, especially on the back-end of back-to-back games as Cascade were on.

Mixed in that it’s back-to-back Oregon West Conference league games and the ante’s are amp’s up even more so than they would any other non-league back-to-back.

But here they were.  Without Ariel Tobassion and Emma Clinton, both out with injuries, entering halftime up 20-18 on an Outlaw squad that rode into halftime on a 10-4 advantage after the Cougars 14-2 run to build a then 16-8 lead.

Cascade were looking to snap their six-game skid, the Outlaws the same on a similar seven-game skid as they enter the second half.

For the Cougars, it’s been hard without Tobassion in having that third guard body out there to feed off of.  But coming off of their tough loss to Philomath Friday, Cascade knew they just had to grind and fight.

“We struggle with not having a point guard out there.  Like we have Kenna (Coleman) and me but we struggle having another one.  Yeah they had more girls than us, I felt like we had to fight, it was all who wanted it more out there,” said Bailey Pedersen.

The game had the look as if the fourth quarter will be the deciding factor for the win and who had what left in the gas tank with the score at 27-25 in favor of the host Cougars Saturday afternoon.

And that’s when they made their move.

“We stepped it up big on effort in the third quarter.  The third quarter are most important, we grinded in there,” said Pedersen. “Our number one goal is to get it inside and get it to our post and they were finishing for us today.”

Abbigail Cordero was the workhorse in this game, going 7-for-7 at the line with 19 points in the game that helped open up her teammates.  Pedersen hit a three to put Cascade up 32-25 entering the fourth quarter.

The Cougars pushed their lead to 11 in the fourth quarter and it held steady for the remainder of the 46-29 victory as they travel to Newport Tuesday before coming back to home court Friday night.

“It was good, we came out with energy which we’ve been struggling with and we executed well,” said Cordero.  “It was good to see everyone step up, take on new roles and stuff like that, everyone did good.”

Emma Lutz finished with 12 points for Sisters.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald