Girls Basketball - December 3rd

The three Oak Harbor High School girls basketball teams, Freshman, JV and Varsity, traveled to Mountlake Terrace HS for their season opener on Wednesday.
The Freshman team played hard, but wound up on the short end of a 38-17 score. Leading the Wildcats with 6 points was Rayan Russell, followed by Erika Flores with 4. Other Freshman girls scoring were Kaileen Burleson 2, Kaitlynn Rossman 2, Emily Hunt 1, and Dominique Jackson (DJ) with 2 – both free throws. Named Captains for that first game were Rossman and Flores. The team does need to improve on their free throws, as they went 3-13 from the line in that game.
The JV game started out slow…very slow. Mountlake Terrace scored two baskets early, and from there both teams ran up and down the court with little to show for their efforts, until, with 3:26 left in the 1st period, Janelle Yoshimoto scored the Wildcat’s first basket. That score got the girls out of their funk, and from there, the team went on a 16-0 run. The score at the end of the 1st period was 9-4, and the girls kept MLT from scoring again until 3:22 left in the half, which ended with an 18-6 Oak Harbor lead. Coming out for the 3rd period, the Wildcat scorefest continued as they built a 22-8 lead with 6 minutes remaining in the 3rd. At that point, Mountlake Terrace got back in the game and started some scoring of their own. While they did not close much of the gap, the MLT JV did keep even with the Wildcats, and the 3rd ended with a 28-14 Wildcat lead. In the 4th period, MLT started closing the gap, cutting the Wildcat lead to 7, but that’s as close as it would get, and the Wildcats went on to win 41-32. Top scorer on the JV squad was Mariah Ferguson with 14, then Janelle Yoshimoto (Yoshi) with 11. Also getting on the board were Molly Deleon 9, Tatiana Cumming 5, and Shantae Young 2. The team was 2-6 from the line, but Terrace was 0-12!
In the Varsity game, the Wildcats played a hard game. The two teams traded baskets in the first minute, but behind some sharp shooting by Jessica Denmon, the ‘Cats built a 19-7 lead by the end of the first period. Cori Henricksen added to the total with a pair of 3-pointers. The Wildcats fell flat in the 2nd period, scoring only 4 points – 2 by Henricksen in the first minute and a buzzer beater by Jen Jansen at the half. Even though the Wildcats didn’t score much, the defense was still there, allowing only 9 points by Mountlake Terrace.
The Wildcats started the 2nd half with a 25-16 lead, and pushed it to a 44-21 lead by the end of the 3rd. Denmon found her aim, while Jansen used her size inside and Clarissa Abadesco added some points as well. The defense was still on track, putting pressure on the Hawks. They allowed only 5 points in the 3rd, and got even tougher in the 4th, allowing only 3 Mountlake Terrace points while scoring 16. The Wildcats won the game going away, posting a 60-24 win. Denmon was the lead scorer with 24, Jen Jansen had 11 and Cori Henricksen had 10. Others scoring were Cheyenne Tubo 2, Nicole Mowbray 6, Clarissa Abadesco 5, and Tiffany Earnhart 2.

Next up for the girls basketball team is a home game against Bellingham on Saturday night, December 6th.

Images from the Freshman, JV and Varsity games can be found by clicking HERE.

3 clips from the Varsity game are posted here. JV clips coming soon.