The Cascade Champions fell to the visiting Monterey Wildcats in their final non-region game of the 2024 season, 42-0, on Friday night.

Pregame, Cascade honored the late Cory Phillips on the field with a retirement of his jersey number (5) with family members, teammates, and friends gathering together on the field during an emotional evening rescheduled from the Community game earlier in the season.

Cory Phillips' jersey (5) was retired pregame against Monterey.

For the Champions, sophomore Braxton Burris got his second consecutive start under center, finishing 19/28 for 164 yards through the air. His counterparts, Collin Fowler and Eli Phillips, finished a combined 7/14 for 82 yards and 1 TD in the passing game.

On the ground, Cascade could not get anything going against the stout front of the visiting Wildcats, tallying 48 rushing yards on 16 carries. Monterey finished with nearly 400 yards rushing on the night. Cole Bowman finished the night with a game-high 178 yards rushing and 2 TDs on 14 carries while Collin Fowler tacked on 123 yards rushing and 1 TD on nine carries, all of it coming in the first half.

Monterey opened the game with a 5-play, 97-yard TD drive that took 1:50 off the clock after slipping at the 3-yard line on the opening kickoff. Fowler broke free for a 54-yard scamper down the right sideline to flip the field, and then two plays later, Cole Bowman took his first carry of the game from 13 yards out for the opening touchdown to put the Wildcats ahead 7-0 with 10:10 left in the first quarter.

On Cascade’s first possession, Burris started 3/3 for 25 yards before the Champions ended up having to punt the ball away. The Wildcats marched down the field yet again, capping off their second consecutive touchdown drive with a 9-yard TD run by Fowler with 47 seconds left in the first quarter.

On the ensuing Cascade possession, another promising start again was snuffed out by the Monterey defense, forcing a Christian Casey fumble at Monterey’s 38-yard line. Fortunately for the hosts, their defense stood tall, forcing a three-and-out to give the ball back to their offense. 

Christian Casey (11) finished with 5 catches for 43 yards.

After a bizarre penalty went against Cascade on 3rd-and-4 close to midfield to create a 3rd-and-19, the Champs had to punt the ball away. Monterey got back to their bread and butter running the football, capping the drive off with Bowman’s second TD of the night, this time from 6 yards out to make it 21-0 with 3:49 left in the first half.

Cascade once again drove down the field into Monterey territory, but the drive stalled out after a failed 4th-and-3 conversion attempt gave the Wildcats the ball back with 1:09 left in the first half. Not having completed a pass through the air yet, Monterey brought in junior QB, Eli Phillips, to lead the 2-minute drill before half, and he did so masterfully. Phillips went 3/4 for 27 yards with his final pass finding the diving arms of Marcus Phillips in the end zone from 12 yards out to extend the visitors’ lead to 28-0 with one second left on the clock.

Down 28-0 to start the second half, Cascade took their opening possession down to the Monterey 26-yard line where they once again failed to convert on 4th down, turning the ball over on downs. After the two teams traded punts, Andrew Dowell recovered Paxton Payne’s muff at the Cascade 40-yard line with 3:17 left in the third quarter, but ultimately the hosts were unable to get anything going offensively. 

Eli Phillips finally found the end zone for Monterey with six seconds left in the third quarter to push their lead to 35-0 after a 15-yard TD run. The Wildcats tacked on one more TD in the fourth quarter to reach the final, 42-0. Despite getting shut out in back-to-back games for the first time since 2018, the offense showed quite a bit more promise through the air with Braxton Burris under center. Going into their bye week, there is a lot of room for improvement, but there is also a lot to build on for the home stretch that will determine if Cascade qualifies for the postseason out of their region.

Monterey improves to 4-3 (0-2).

Cascade falls to 1-6 (0-1) with their next game coming after the bye week on October 18th at Cannon County, LIVE on WZNG The Zinger 100.9 at 6:45 p.m.