The Mount Si Wildcats boys’ basketball team opened its season with a 20-point second-half lead, which it converted into a decisive 67-59 victory against the 4A Tahoma Bears.
Key to the Dec. 8 victory was the 16 points of senior forward Luke Landdeck. Landdeck hit four of five three-point shots for 12 of those points.
“I’ve been working hard ever since the end of the season last year. It’s just finally coming around,” said Landdeck.
Chipping in 16 points for the Wildcats was junior guard Erik Tierney, while sophomore guard Kyle Clearman, making his varsity debut, scored 11.
“It was pretty exciting,” said Clearman. “I was kind of nervous at first, but [the feeling] got better as the game went on.”
As for the Bears, senior Cory Ridge scored a game-high 26 points.
Wildcats’ coach Garrick Phillips said there’s a lot of room for improvement.
“I really like the athleticism and the makeup of our team,” said Phillips. “We kind of have all the pieces of the puzzle – we really do. It’s just basically decision making that we’re going to have to work on … That’s what coaching’s all about.”
On Dec. 11 the Wildcats opened their Kingco 3A schedule with a home loss, 58-52, to the Sammamish Totems. Poor shooting in the first half (37.5 percent) and 27 turnovers contributed to the defeat. Credit the tough Totems defense for keeping the Wildcats at bay all evening.
“We’re trying to concentrate on pressure defense, and you know, really, Mount Si is a very good team. They handled our pressure pretty good and we just tried to step it up a little bit more, and turn it up a notch, and see if we [could] get some turnovers and we kind of did that,” said Totems coach Chris O’Connor.
Sophomore Danny Bright scored 19 for the Totems to lead all scorers, while senior Erik Tierney scored 16, including 12 off three-pointers, to lead the Wildcats. Fellow senior Jeremy Johnston added 14, and Landdeck followed his strong performance from last Monday’s game by contributing a respectable 11 points to the losing cause.
O’Connor knows that this win is crucial for his Sammamish squad with a tight race in the Valley Division expected this season.
Friday, the Wildcats went across the mountains to Yakima and suffered a road loss against the Rams of West Valley-Yakima. The 3A Rams were led by the game-high 31 points of senior Andrew Strait. The Wildcats had no one in double figures for points, and as a team shot a horrible 26.4 percent from the floor in the 58-36 defeat.
Mount Si this Friday is at Liberty for a 7:30 game, and will not return home until Jan. 3, 2004, when they play Seattle Prep of the 3A Metro League in a nonleague contest.
