SNOQUALMIE – The Mount Si Wildcats girls’ volleyball team went 4-0 to start the Kingco 3A season, but that changed when they ran into the high-flying Issaquah Eagles.

Last Monday, Issaquah showed that Mount Si has a little work to do if the team wants to compete with the areas big names, with a 25-17, 25-18 and 25-18 dismantling of the Wildcats.

“It was very frustrating. I don’t feel that they are that much of a better team than us. I just feel that we’re really inexperienced right now and we made a lot of mistakes – [a] lot of serving errors. We did a lot of things to ourselves,” said Mount Si coach Bonnie Foote.

The reaction from the opponents was much different.

“It was a tough match that we knew that we needed to come out and play at our best, and so we came out and did a pretty good job tonight,” said Issaquah coach Todd Parsons. “Mount Si’s definitely got some players over there that can play some good ball.”

The Eagles led throughout the entire match with the exception of two points early in the third game. At only three times were games tied, illustrating the Eagles’ dominance.

Key to the effort was sophomore Casi Schwisow.

“I think we just came out and we really wanted to dominate this match. We wanted to take this gym and we really came out with a lot of intensity and got our game together right away and just dominated,” Schwisow said.

The efforts of Issaquah teammates Sarah Primrose and Kristy LeMond also were key to victory in the match.

Eagles’ server Vanessa Perry’s ace closed game one; game two was clinched in Issaquah’s favor when Wildcat senior star Marissa Hill’s kill attempt sailed out of bounds; game three, and the match, was clinched when another Mount Si kill attempt sailed out of bounds.

Foote is concerned about what lies ahead.

“We’re struggling in a setting role. We’re struggling trying to find combinations out there,” she said.

Could this team be a solid 4-2 in conference, as of last Thursday, and be in a rebuilding mode? Foote offered some pretty telling words.

“I will never give up on this season, but I will tell you right now, I’m going to start looking at my younger kids, and I’m going to start seeing if they can step up and play this game, because right now, our upperclassmen aren’t doing it for us,” she said.

For the Eagles, their direction is much more positive.

“We have nice, high expectations for this year, and there is still a lot of things that we know we need to work on if we want to be the team that we want to be,” said Parsons.

The Wildcats rallied from down two games for the second time this season to force a fifth game last Wednesday against the Newport Knights at Newport, but failed to close the deal, falling 15-7 in the final game. Great efforts were delivered by senior Ashley Svarthumle and junior Amanda Frost. Inconsistent serving lead to the demise, Foote said. She added the team “showed a lot of character, and it is very evident that we can beat anyone when we put together a complete game.”

After having played Mercer Island and Bellevue to open this week, the Wildcats play Sammamish on Friday. In the two teams’ first meeting of the year, on Sept. 10 at Sammamish, Mount Si got all it could handle from the Totems before winning the contest in five games. First serve is scheduled for 4:15 p.m. This is the final regular season afternoon game of the year for the Wildcats.