By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

FOREST GROVE, Ore.–  Sam Horne was that  guy for Cascade in their 4A State Quarterfinal win over Marist.  Not even six minutes in, he had nine of the Cougars then 18 points and had already eclipsed double-figures a minute into the second quarter of a game that saw Cascade jump out to a 21-2 lead after one and 24-4 early in the second quarter.

It was as if the Cougars waited for this particular moment to hit their peak.  Defense, offense, transition, all the areas of their game they looked as if it took a turbo boost of Nos out of the gate at Forest Grove High School in hopes to defend their State Championship this weekend.  For Horne, it was his time to shine.  So he put the team on his back and made sure he wasn’t going to let his team down in their moment of need with the squad leading 37-12 at the halftime break over the Spartans with 18 of those 37 points belonging to the senior shooter.  

The kids nowadays would call it, ‘He’s Him’, meaning that he’s that guy or he’s on fire.  

Or so I understand the term in passing.  But nonetheless, Horne was on fire Thursday afternoon as he went on to have 20 points and six rebounds in the victory as they await the winner of Junction City-Gladstone Friday night at 8:15pm back at Forest Grove High School. Not to mention six first-half steals, seven total, to set the pace for the Cascade defense in the Quarterfinal game.

“We have a dominant team that anyone can go off for 20 and it was me in this game.  It’s going to be someone else tomorrow and someone else  on Saturday, so it was whoever brought it and I wanted it today.  I was feeling it tonight,” Horne starts. “We’ve been putting in the work.  We’ve had a long break since our last game, so we’ve been putting in work and going hard, pushing each other, running a lot and conditioning.  We kicked it into another gear today and Cascade does what Cascade does and it showed.”

And the road to repeat will only get harder from here.  The Tigers and Gladiators will be chomping at the bit Friday night and will be standing in the way for the Cougars to reach the Title Game Saturday.  But it’s something that they’ll be ready for after a good night healing up.

“It’s going to be big.  We got to rest and prepare for tomorrow for either JC or Gladstone, we’ll watch them tonight,” Horne said.

Droiy Comstock contributed 14 points and eight rebounds and Anthony Best was the other Cougar to score in double-figures with 12 points as ten Cascade players scored at least a point in the win.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald