PENDLETON — Brian Morse has worked for the last 19 years to get Cascade Christian basketball to this point: A state champion.

As a former player and now coach for the Challengers, Morse has seen both sides of the valley.

But Saturday's 55-34 win over longtime rival St. Mary's has made the journey even more satisfying.

"It's incredible," says Morse. "When I first started there was something like 54 kids in the school and eight players on the team."

Now, the program has around 75 players through all levels.

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Morse was a player on the first team in Cascade Christian history. Those Challengers won four straight Skyline 7 League titles while he was there.

Morse then attended and played basketball for Seattle Pacific University. In June of 1988, Morse took the head coaching job at Cascade Christian just after his college graduation.

The Challengers lost every league game his first year.

"That was tough," remembers Morse. "We definitely struggled."

But Cascade Christian turned around and qualified for the state playoffs in each of the next 16 seasons.

That streak was snapped two years ago, but Cascade Christian has more than made up for it with this season's run to the title.

"The big reason," Morse says of this year's success, "is we started an AAU program when these seniors now were in seventh grade."

Morse began the AAU program, which now runs from fifth to eighth grades, after watching a number of Grace Christian Middle School players — Cascade Christian's feeder school — later leave to star for North or South Medford.

"These kids would play on these AAU teams with kids from the other Medford schools," says Morse, "and then they'd want to keep playing with them when they got older. Now those kids stay on at Cascade Christian.

"It's been a lot of work, but we're reaping the benefits."

And paving a way for a bright basketball future at Cascade Christian High.

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WHEN THE GAMES are over and it's time to head home, Morse and St. Mary's front man Rick Jackson can't escape each other's company.

That became the case when Morse married Jackson's younger sister, Jennifer, in 1988.

"They started dating when they were sophomores and I was a senior in high school," says Jackson, a former St. Mary's High standout. "I just remember this little 15-year-old sophomore always hanging around my house."

Morse was then a player at Cascade Christian.

"I remember Rick being a star at St. Mary's," says Morse. "They had all these guys and (current South Medford coach) Dennis Murphy was coaching them. They were very good."

Morse and Jackson have since played plenty of basketball over the years, both with and against each other.

If there was an open gym, the two of them would be there.

"We were always competing," says Morse. "Rick is a very competitive guy."

Jackson doesn't disagree.

"He's a great guy and I'm sort of a jerk," laughs Jackson. "But Brian and his team have worked very hard to get to this point."

Jackson was part of two St. Mary's teams to earn a state trophy. Now Morse has added another piece of hardware to the family.

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DEFENSE IS WHAT drove both St. Mary's and Cascade Christian to Saturday's finale.

The Challengers used a stifling man-to-man defense to hold their first two tournament opponents, Monroe and Knappa, to a combined 28 of 87 shooting (32 percent) and forced 33 turnovers.

"We've played very good defense all year," says Morse. "You can't get to this level without having a defense."

The Crusaders, meanwhile, strayed from familiar territory at the state tournament.

Jackson admits to being a coach that loves the man-to-man defense. In the first two tournament games, however, St. Mary's went primarily to a 2-3 zone, which forced opposing teams to make the perimeter shot. The end result was a combined 32 of 106 (30 percent) from the field by defending state champion Oakland and SCL rival Bonanza.

"I had never started a game in a zone defense in my three years here," says Jackson. "We started that against Oakland, and against Bonanza, we learned a man defense doesn't work against their big athletic guys."

Bonanza had scored over 50 points in each of the four previous meetings against the Crusaders. Friday night in the state semifinals, the Antlers managed only 47 points.

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THE NATURAL RIVALRY between Cascade Christian and St. Mary's will dissipate next season.

The Challengers will move up to 3A, while the Crusaders will remain in the SCL at the 2A level.

The teams will still most likely meet up, though.

"Brian and I talked about that," says Jackson. "We're trying to work something out where we will play in their tournament next year. Plus, there's a good chance we will only be apart for one year since we could move up (to 3A) in a couple of years."

Cascade Christian has owned the rivalry the last two years after years of dominance by St. Mary's.

"The shoe has definitely been on the other foot the last couple seasons," says Jackson.

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ST. MARY'S HAS NOW trophied 13 times in state-tournament play. The Crusaders won titles in 1979 and '93 and finished runner-up twice.

Cascade Christian has two trophies, with the last coming in the Challengers' last tournament appearance in 2002 (eighth place), when it was a 16-team field. In 1997, Cascade Christian lost both games at the tournament.

Bonanza, the SCL's second seed, lost to Knappa in the third-fourth-place game Saturday afternoon, 56-50. If the Antlers had won, the SCL would have had the top three placers at state.

Reach reporter Kevin Goff at 776-4483, or e-mail kgoff@mailtribune.com