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Saturday, December 1, 2007
Safe At Home
Central Oklahoma, OK
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Once considered a move-in, Welch is now Cashion through and through
It took Bailey Welch a few months to finally feel at home in Cashion.
It took about 12 seconds for her to become a legend.
Everyone in Cashion knows the story by heart. The folks in Howe do, too.
State championship game: Cashion down by a point to top-ranked Howe and the clock ticking down. With just 1 second remaining, Welch lets loose a running floater in the lane that gets up past the reach of defenders and swishes through as the buzzer sounds.
The Lady Wildcats were state champions and the “new girl” hit the winning shot.
And now, Welch isn’t the new girl anymore. She’s as much a part of the town’s lore as its namesake, Roy V. Cashion, the first Oklahoma soldier killed in the Spanish-American War. She admits the fame earned from that night at State Fair Arena has definitely been nice, especially among previous generations of Wildcats.
“People actually knew who I was (after the tournament),” Welch said. “Being able to walk around and have old people know who you are is pretty cool.”
Luckily, it didn’t take any magical shots for her teammates to welcome her aboard.
Starting the 2006-07 school year as a sophomore move-in, the only person she knew was Chad Tichneor, the Cashion coach she had played for when he was working at her old school, Morrison. Welch wasn’t concerned with impressing him; it was her team, the girls who had lived and played together for several years, which had her stressed.
“I thought I had to prove myself,” Welch said. “It was kind of weird knowing I had gone to Morrison my whole life and was coming in my sophomore year and just stepped in to be a starter. I kind of felt they might not like me for that.”
Her concerns were unfounded as the team welcomed the new guard as one of their own.
“I was really excited to have someone with such talent move in,” said Hannah Davidson, a senior post player who has lived in Cashion since she was three-years old. “I was thinking about the team and how much we could use her.”
They definitely used her – as a teammate, a friend and, on one occasion, became her biggest supporters when the Wildcats hit the road for a regular season game at Morrison.
The crowd was vocal that night and their target was Welch, starting with the pre-game introductions and carrying on every time she grabbed the ball. According to Welch, “Traitor” was the night’s primary yell, but just feeling their resentment was the worst part. That, and ultimately losing the game – one of only three they would suffer all year.
“It was serious,” Welch said. “It was hurtful to me.”
Yet Tichneor praised how the coaches and players handled the situation, but saw the experience as something that galvanized his squad.
“Their players were great and played with a lot of class, it was just some people in the stands getting on her,” said Tichneor, in his third season in Cashion. “I didn’t specifically say anything to Bailey, but I pulled the whole team together and talked a little bit about what they were up against. It was a great learning experience. Morrison was just the better team that night.”
This year’s Cashion squad will get a chance to avenge the Morrison loss – at home on Feb. 1. The defending champs also get their fair share of big games with rival and fellow powerhouse Okarche on the schedule at least twice. The Wildcats will sport a different look this season, having lost four seniors and most of their rebounding leaders. What they do have is depth, and an old veteran of big games, Bailey Welch.
“She has such great court awareness and can do so much for us, whether it’s scoring 30 on some nights or just distributing. That’s what we need from her,” Tichneor said. “Bailey is a complete player.”
She’s also a Cashion Wildcat, through and through.
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