Kodiak girls basketball team keep striving for improvement in tough CTL

For Head Coach Dane Lewman, trying to rebuild the once proud Cascade girls’ basketball program is proving to be a stern challenge. The girls have actually done well against non-league teams, but in the tough Caribou Trail League, they have not come close.
Last week saw the team absorb a couple lopsided defeats at the hands of Chelan and Omak. On Jan. 3, Cascade hosted Chelan. They trailed 9-5 in the first quarter, but were outscored 19-2 in the second quarter to trail 28-7 at half.  
The Kodiaks played a better third quarter, but still trailed 39-15. The fourth quarter was fairly even  but still Cascade had too much ground to catch up, losing 51-23. The high number of turnovers really made it hard for the Kodiaks.
“Unfortunately, we spent more time passing it to them than us. That hurt our game overall. It hurt our flow. For the first three minutes, we were back and forth, doing what we needed to do. A couple bad passes took us out of that. Those a things we have to clean up. We just have to work on getting better,” Lewman said.
Cascade’s shooters seemed to have more of a green light in this game. Lewman said he wants his shooters to have the green light, in the flow.
“If were moving the ball well and they’ve found their spot on the backside, they have the green light to pull the trigger. A couple of those were out of desperation. We can’t have those shots. Those are things we can’t do,” Lewman said. “We just have to take this as a learning opportunity to get better at those pieces. We just started our second round in league. We have another full round, then one more.”
Chelan is a younger team, like Cascade, but Lewman said it is not a fair comparison because those girls have been playing together for a long time.
“The freshman group has been playing together for seven years. That’s caused them to understand basketball well and understand each other well. That’s something they bring to the table that we don’t have yet,” Lewman said. “That is a focus of ours through the youth program. It will take time. They are a good to measure against because it is a similar style that we want to be playing. I like facing Chelan. They are class act team.”
On June 5, Cascade played at Omak, losing 67-30. The loss dropped Cascade to 0-6 in league and 3-9 overall. On June 8, Cascade played at Cashmere (5-0, 11-1), a team that beat them 84-9 last time. Results were not available before press time.
Cascade plays 2B Bridgeport on Thursday. They are at Cle Elum on Saturday. They resume league play on Tuesday at Okanogan (2-3, 6-6).  
Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.