Girls Basketball vs Arlington - 1/6/09

On January 6th, the OH girls basketball team played only their 2nd league game of the year, 3 other game being canceled due to snow. The game was against Arlington, which seems to have Oak Harbor’s number this year when it comes to sports.

The freshman game was close through halftime, with Arlington holding an 8-4 1st period and 17-13 2nd period lead. In the 3rd period, the Eagles, which Coach Showalter called one of the best freshman teams in the area, opened the game up, and by the end of the 3rd had moved their lead to 31-17 by scoring 14 points in the 3rd and allowing only 4 OH points. The Arlington push continued in the 4th as they added another 15 to cruise to a 46-22 win. Rayan Russell led in scoring with 7, followed by Lia Pantoleon with 5, Kaitlynn Rossman with 4, DJ 3, Emily Hunt 2, and Erika Flores 1. Coach Showalter said the girls didn’t play badly, but that Arlington is just that good. However, out of 19 free throws attempted, the girls hit only 3 for a .157 free throw percentage.

The JV game was exciting. Oak Harbor came out flat, not scoring until almost halfway through the 1st period, then didn’t score again until Adrianna Royal hit a pair of free throws with just 33 seconds on the clock. They woke up a bit in the 2nd, scoring 8 but allowing 9, so at halftime it was 17-13 in favor of Arlington. The Wildcats tied the game just over halfway through the 3rd with a basket by Molly DeLeon, and a score by Janelle Yoshimoto (Yoshi) with just over 1 minute gave OH their first lead of the game. It didn’t last, but the two teams went back and forth, trading the lead 6 times in the 4th. With just 1:38 left in the game, Yoshi tied the game at 32, but a basket by Arlington with 1 minute left forced the Wildcats to foul to stop the clock, and the Arlington free throw shooters went a perfect 4-4 in that last minute to win 38-32. Mariah Ferguson put in 10 points, Yoshi 8 and Molly 7 to lead the team. Tatiana Cumming, Adrianna Royal and Shantae Young had 2 each, and Jessica James made one free throw.

Things didn’t look good early in the varsity game, as Arlington led 7-2 just 2½ minutes into the game, but scores by Nikki Mowbray, Jessica Denmon and Cori Henricksen tied the game at 9 halfway through the 1st. The two teams battled back and forth for the remainder of the first half, with Arlington scores in the last 2 minutes resulting in a 26-20 halftime lead for the Eagles. In the 3rd, Arlington’s lead continued until the last minute of the 3rd, when Denmon scored twice and Mowbray hit a pair of free throws to cut the Eagle lead to just 2 points, 35-33 at the end of 3. Arlington sank a 3-pointer to start the 4th period to lead by 5, a lead that would stand for most of the period until Jen Jansen hit on a fast break from an inbounds pass with 27 second left, cutting the Arlington lead to just 2 points, 49-47. But, Arlington was able to score 3, and a last-second shot by Kathryn Fisken, while good, wasn’t enough and Arlington won 52-49.

The girls would have played at Stanwood on Thursday, but flooding resulted in the closure of Stanwood HS, so the game will be rescheduled to another date, along with the other 3 games missed due to snow. The next scheduled game is this Saturday at OHHS against Monroe.

45 photos from the Freshman, JV and Varsity games can be found HERE.

A few video highlight clips will be posted HERE.