The Kingco 3A girls’ basketball season got back underway last week for the Mount Si Wildcat girls’ basketball team. Right away, this very young team found out the hard way that it is still a work in progress.

Mount Si held the lead for much of the first half Wednesday, Jan. 3, against league power Issaquah, only to see that lead evaporate in the third quarter on the strength of a 15-0 Eagles run. The Wildcats responded to tie the game late, but failed to slam the door shut on Issaquah as the Eagles took home a close victory, 49-43.

Madison Yakaboski scored 20 points to lead all scorers for Mount Si, but it was not enough.

Wildcat coach Dirk Hansen was not very happy after the game. “We’re disappointed. We’re very disappointed, the girls are disappointed and I told them, ‘You know what, when the score’s tied and there’s two minutes left to go in the game, you’ve got to put the nail in the coffin, you’ve got to suck it up and get it done,'” Hansen said. The coach added his team learned a very tough lesson about the importance of practice. “Our girls learned a lesson tonight because we were turning the ball over [last Tuesday] in practice and they were giggling about it and so I reminded them that if they don’t value the basketball at practice, the same thing’s going to happen in a game,” Hansen said.

Yakaboski thinks things will change. “I think that once the girls start getting it into their minds that you’ve got to treat practice like it’s an actual game situation, we’ll be able to handle it much better,” Yakaboski said.

Freshman Karly Thompson summed the game up this way; “Well, we started out really good, I think, in the first half and then I think a little bit we started to give up … and then I just don’t think we came out strong enough, but next time we’ll be ready,” Thompson said.