SNOQUALMIE – The Mount Si Wildcats girls basketball team suffered a stunning loss last Tuesday at home against Newport. Up 11 points at halftime, 31-20, the Wildcats failed to close the deal and fell to the Knights.
Junior Dani Quinn was fouled by Wildcat Tori Ewing with 17 seconds left, and with the game tied at 53-53, Quinn hit one of two free throws to put the Knights up 54-53. Following the free throws, Ewing and senior Rachel Travis each had opportunities to hit the go-ahead bucket; Ewing in fact had two shot attempts. None went in and Newport came out with the final rebound to seal a stunning come-from-behind 54-53 win.
“It can’t be understated how big this was,” said Knights coach Travis Whitaker. “We have a pretty good rivalry going on with Mount Si and there’s always a lot of intensity when we come out here, and we hung in there. We were down 16 at one point in the second quarter and we just talked about sticking together.”
The key was Quinn, according to her teammate Tricia Dixon.
“What it basically came down to was making our free throws and Dani Quinn came up big for us making her free throws to put us up by one,” Dixon said.
Dixon scored a game-high 19 points to lead Newport, while Quinn added 14 to pace the Knights. Travis scored 17 to lead the Wildcats in defeat.
Wildcat coach Dirk Hansen, who described the result as a “devastating loss,” also made mention of the budding rivalry between the two teams.
“My girls played their hearts out. Whenever we play Newport it’s an emotional game because of things that have happened in the past between coaching staffs and players and fans, and this was one that, as much as I hate to admit it, it hurts, and it’s not that we didn’t have our chances,” he said.
Initially, the game looked as if it was going to be a repeat of last season’s ugly Kingco Tournament game between the two teams. Neither team made many of their shots early in the contest, and as late as 1:27 left in the first quarter the score was only 5-4 Knights. However, on the following Mount Si possession, Travis hit a three-pointer, and the Wildcats basically held the lead from that point until Quinn’s fateful free throw.
Friday, the Wildcats struggled against another top team, the Issaquah Eagles. Melissa Richardson scored a game-high 24 points to lead the Eagles, 18 of which came in the first half, and Issaquah’s defense held Mount Si to 2-for-23 from three-point range in a 49-29 victory.
“We kind of go as our perimeter shooting goes and it was one of those nights where we couldn’t get our outside shots to go down and it just kind of had a snowballing effect on the entire team,” said Hansen.
Junior Tara Eddings offered praise for Richardson.
“She’s a great player, I have to admit,” Eddings said. “She deserves those points. We tried to stop her, but we couldn’t. We tried our best.”
The Wildcats took an early lead in the game, 6-2, but the Eagles rallied and never looked back. Travis scored eight to lead Mount Si in defeat, in what was the lowest offensive output of the year thus far for the Wildcats.
The Wildcats are 8-6 overall, 4-4 in league. As of Friday, they own the head-to-head tiebreaker over Liberty, also 4-4 in league. Wednesday, the Wildcats face Liberty at Liberty before starting a winnable stretch of three home games to wrap up the home schedule for the season. First of the trifecta is Friday night at home against Sammamish, then next Friday the team plays its final home game of the season against Mercer Island on “Senior Night.” Six seniors, led by Beyerlin and Travis, are set to be honored prior to that contest next Friday. Game times for all games are 7:30 p.m.
