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http://www.omniture.com --> Mail Tribune Blogs --> --> « More Mardi Gras musings from La. About the blog » Rematch on the hardwood? Posted by Kevin Goff It was my first visit to The Pavilion Saturday night. While the game itself between Cascade Christian and Bonanza mirrored a football game without pads, the gymnasium that houses Challengers’ basketball was impressive. The place was packed to the gills, with quite a few Bonanza fans standing for the entire game. The crowd was loud and enthusiastic, something you’d expect with both Class 2A teams ranked in the top five. Here’s a great link with photos of all angles of the gym. You’ll have to copy and paste because I can’t figure out this link deal. http://www.sosportstalk.com/CASCADE_GYM.html. But back to the game and, more importantly, what I think. Which is what counts, right? For those of you that don’t read our paper, I recommend you do so, Cascade Christian won the game (48-44) to earn the No. 1 seed from the Southern Cascade League. There were some items I couldn’t get in my story because of various reasons that had me short on time (let’s just say the flu bug struck our department at the wrong time). For one, I was impressed with the intensity level of what has now become THE rivalry in the SCL. There’s definitely no love loss between the two teams after Cascade Christian beat Bonanza to win the 2A football title. At moments, that seemed to spill out onto the court. But neither side was unsportsmanlike about it. In fact, Kyle Gomez, Bonanza’s top scorer, fouled out late in the game and went over to the Challengers’ sideline to shake Cascade Christian coach Brian Morse’s hand. That was classy, I thought. I did think the officials let the rough play go on a little too long. But I know how tough it is to officiate, so I won’t give them any grief over it. Bonanza, by losing and falling to the No. 2 seed, didn’t get any favors by drawing co-No. 1 Portland Christian in the first round of the state playoffs. But playing at Bonanza, that could be a tough road for anyone. The Challengers, who host Kennedy on Friday, have all the pieces to win a state title. They’re big, athletic, can shoot the 3, defend and rebound. The only drawback, which coach Brian Morse echoed after the game, was their tendency to turn the ball over. Saturday, Cascade Christian had more turnovers (23) than a bakery, and most of them were unforced. Bonanza did some trapping, but the miscues came when the Challengers became a little too unselfish or simply tried to force something that wasn’t there. Cascade Christian assistant football coach Brandon Boice was in attendance. At halftime (Bonanza was up 18-16 and the Challengers already had 12 turnovers) I briefly spoke with him and asked him what he thought of the first half. His face said it all, but I wanted to get a second opinion. “Bonanza is just tougher,” Boice said. “They’re just taking the ball away from us. We’re not being very tough, which is not what we (football coaches) taught them in the fall.” Things turned in the third quarter, with Andrew Shipley catching fire for 12 points and Cascade Christian didn’t trail again. But the Challengers, who will move up to the 3A level next year, will have to cut back on the giveaways to take that next step to punch their ticket to the state tournament in Pendleton. Bonanza, which seems to live or die on 3-point bombs from Gomez and Andy Davis, could see Cascade Christian again for a fourth time in the state tourney. Both sides, if they get to the tourney, are on opposite sides of the bracket to start and would each have to win two tournament games to get there. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, I usually do. But if that does play out, we could be looking at another Bonanza-Cascade Christian state title game. Only this time it’s on the hardwood. This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 6:44 pm and is filed under Sports Insiders . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site. Leave a Reply Mail Tribune Blogs is proudly powered by WordPress Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS) .