Mount Si boys clinch postseason berth

Published 8:59 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

It was Mount Si boys’ basketball senior guard/forward Eric Hensley’s 19th birthday last Friday night, and his teammates delivered quite a present: a 70-52 thumping of the Sammamish Totems in Kingco 3A Conference action at Mount Si High School which, combined with Liberty’s loss to Issaquah, means the Wildcats will finish no worse than third in the Valley Division a spot in the Kingco Tournament is theirs. Hensley was very happy with the present his teammates delivered.

“They delivered great. They did what coach (Garrick) Phillips told them to do, plus more, just basically they did great. Just glad we were able to come out with high intensity and take a victory,” said Hensley.

Defense was the big story for Mount Si as the team overcame a early slow start and took care of business. Wildcat coach Phillips said the defense was key to turning it around. “We wanted to keep up the defensive pressure on them and it was very effective because we took them out of everything that they wanted to do. You saw early in the first quarter that kind of a slow down, control team and we wanted to speed them up and take them out of their comfort zone as much as possible, and that’s when we were effective, for sure,” said Phillips.

For the complete story, pick up a copy of this week’s Valley Record