Golden – Cassie Lambrecht dribbled up the court and crouched lower to the court as the basket came into focus.
With a crossover dribble and a lightning-quick first step, she was in the paint. It appeared at first that Lambrecht would attack the two 6-footers guarding the post, but instead she flipped the ball behind her back and into the hands of teammate Tawny Drexler, who dropped in an easy two points.
In that split second, nobody else on the floor or in the stands knew where the ball would go. And since Lambrecht first picked a basketball up so many years ago, nobody is sure where her street style came from.
“It’s more fun to get the ball over the top. I like to push it,” said Lambrecht, a 5-foot-6 junior point guard in her first season at Golden.
When Lambrecht plays, she puts on a show. She can unload a dazzling assist to one of her talented teammates, or she can light up the scoreboard on her own. Her average of 24.7 points leads all scorers in the state, just ahead of Vanessa Leeper of Colorado Springs School (24.6).
“Cass is run-and-gun, a true point guard,” said Ken Lambrecht, Cassie’s father and a Golden assistant coach. “She can attack off the dribble, go one-on-one, make the point or draw the double team. … And she likes to do the flashy stuff. I don’t know where that comes from.”
The Lambrecht family came to the Denver area from Colorado Springs last year, and Cassie left the Palmer Terrors for the Golden Demons. She would prove to be an important addition to an accomplished team that was about to be overhauled.
Golden entered the 2006-07 season riding three straight undefeated 4A Jeffco championship campaigns. But coach Jennifer Cook retired to start a family, and former ThunderRidge assistant Jeff Neal took over the job.
Along with the new coach came a new offense and daughter Samantha Neal, who had been a standout at Summit.
Coach Neal walked into Golden and scrapped the methodical, pound-it-inside scheme for a version he picked up during 5A ThunderRidge’s first state title run in 2003 under Ron Burgin.
Messing with success is dangerous, and it could have turned ugly at Golden.
“As you can imagine, it has had its pleasures and its downfalls,” Jeff Neal said. “Golden has had great success, so the transition hasn’t been totally smooth. But it’s been better than expected.”
Winning helps.
Golden is 15-3 this season, 4-0 in 4A Jeffco and ranked fourth in The Denver Post/9News poll. The Demons have won seven straight and are averaging more than 73 points.
The ability to score almost at will is the main reason peace reigns at Golden.
Jeff Neal is a former NBA agent, with clients such as Shawn Kemp and Detlef Schrempf, and he knows all about keeping his players happy.
“When you’re averaging that many points a game, lots of people gets lots of shots,” Neal said.
No doubt, and Lambrecht is the catalyst.
Unafraid to battle the tallest trees inside, Lambrecht has generated new fans with her fearlessness. Even members of Golden’s boys team could be heard cheering for her at a recent game on the road.
No matter that those cheers were coming from twin brother Chris.
“Cassie really gets the crowd excited. She brings the team to another level,” one-minute-older Chris said.
“She used to play on the guys’ team with me when she was little, and she plays like a guy – no-look passes, behind-the-back passes – and she is extremely competitive.”
Lambrecht has been held to fewer than 20 points just four times this season, and her season low is 17. She has scored 32 points in a game twice in her career, once this season and once at Palmer.
But if Lambrecht weren’t sharing the ball, there would be howls from her teammates and the parents in the stands.
“It’s pretty even. Everyone touches the ball,” Lambrecht said.
Drexler, a 5-11 senior, averages 12.8 points and 8.4 rebounds, and Neal adds 12.5 points a game while pacing the team in steals and assists. Leading this group in steals is no small feat, either: Neal averages just more than four per game, Drexler just less than four and Lam- brecht more than three.
Add contributors Emily Wareham and Katja Jacobs, and Golden has few weaknesses.
And with five games remaining before the postseason, the new-look Demons have jelled. They even avenged an early-season loss to 5A Grand Junction with a 26-point shellacking of the Tigers last weekend.
“Everything clicked in that game,” Lambrecht said.
Cassie’s older sister, Kendra, is a junior guard at Northern Colorado and Ken played for Palmer, so the athletic roots run deep in the Lambrecht family tree.
Ken said he has coached his kids since the day they could walk, and he has been tougher on them than any coach would be.
And this dad/coach sees room for improvement in his youngest daughter.
“She is one of the flashier players on offense,” Ken Lambrecht said. “But I’m working with her on defense. Defense gets it done.”
