Cascade pushes Western to the brink

DES MOINES - It's a community that has and always will love baseball, so leave it to Mitch Recker to use hardball vernacular when describing his Cascade basketball team's game Thursday afternoon."We definitely got a shot in at them, which is what we wanted," he said of a 52-46 loss to mighty Western Christian in a Class 2A state tournament semifinal. "But sometimes when you pitch a perfect game, you don't win."The Cougars didn't play a perfect game, but it was plenty solid, good enough to topple most mortal teams. There's question whether this Western Christian team is mortal, with its 26-0 record and usual looking-straight-up-at size on the interior.It was 6-foot-6 sophomore Josh VanLingen (19 points, 14 rebounds) and 6-7 senior Taylor Feenstra (14 points, eight boards) that were integral in helping the Wolfpack dig out of a 14-point first-quarter hole and finally overcome Cascade's serious upset bid.The twin towers scored their team's final 14 points."I think one of the big things was how they could really pound us on the boards," said Cascade Coach Al Marshall. "They are really a good offensive rebounding team, and they got some key baskets doing that. I thought we played really well throughout the game. But sometimes when you lose, you have to give credit to the opposing team."Marshall and Western's Jim Eekhoff have accounted for over 1,200 career wins, so it was a blast watching the two hall of fame coaches strategize.Marshall's trademark 2-3 zone defense and a take-it-at-them approach offensively helped Cascade land a substantial first punch, with the Cougars leading 20-6 after a Haris Takes 3-pointer early in the second quarter. Staggered but not knocked out, Western rallied behind VanLingen, Feenstra and a couple of timely treys from Taylor Miedema to make it a six-point game at halftime."That's one of the toughest zone defenses I've ever faced," Eekhoff said. "There's just not much there (offensively).""I knew we could win that game," Takes said. "We came out and were going, were going good on defense, playing intense."Western then put on a triangle-and-two defense, playing man to man against Takes and Recker and taking them essentially out of the game. Recker had a team-high 14 points but didn't score the final quarter and a half.Takes, averaging 18 a game, was held to 11, scoring only two points the final two and a half quarters. He couldn't even get the ball, let alone do anything with it."It was a little frustrating, but I've got to keep going," Takes said. "Keep going for the team.""When you can't run the ball through your best offensive weapon, it's pretty frustrating," Recker said. "We tried to do some things we weren't used to doing. We just didn't get it done tonight."So it's on to the 2A consolation game Friday morning at 11:45 against Treynor (24-2). While Eekhoff has six state championships to his coaching credit, Marshall still seeks his first despite approaching the 700-win milestone."They just did a nice job today. I keep coming back to that," Marshall said. "You're disappointed in your loss, but sometimes you just have to credit the other team. That's the case today."Here is the game boxscore:

Cascade by Jeff Johnson