A two-point quarter against a tough, physical team like Kamiak won’t get the job done as the Oak Harbor High School basketball team found out in Saturday’s semi-final round of the Northwest District One Class 4A tournament at Marysville-Pilchuck High School.
Coming off a thrilling 52-51 victory over Jackson on Wednesday, the Wildcats were primed and ready to advance to state championship competition, but ran into an aggressive Kamiak Knights squad and lost a hotly-contested 43-34 decision.
“Offensively, we just didn’t do anything tonight,”coach Brett McLeod said. “We didn’t execute and we didn’t make any shots. We had some open looks, but we weren’t getting anything to go down.”
The Wildcats looked sharp in the first quarter and were prepared for the Kamiak defense that seemed to change with every trip down the floor. After the first eight minutes of action, the score was tied 8-8.
Senior Cori Henricksen knocked down a basket at the 7:35 mark of the second quarter, giving the Wildcats a 10-8 lead, but that was the one and only time Oak Harbor would be on top.
Kamiak came back and scored the next 15 straight points to cruise into halftime with a comfortable 23-10 advantage.
Kinght senior Kelsey Patrick, who has signed a letter of intent to play college basketball for Pepperdine next season, scored eight points in the second period.
The Wildcats trailed by as many as 19 points at one time in the third period, but never quit and shaved the lead to 39-32 late in the game. But then Nicole Mowbray, one of Oak Harbor’s leading scorers, took an elbow to the face under the Kamiak boards that knocked her out for a few moments and put the junior forward out of the game.
She suffered a dislocated jaw as the result of the incident and will be out of athletics for the next four to six weeks.
After Mowbray went down, the Wildcats could not draw any closer and lost their eighth game of the season.
“We handled their press okay and then did some stupid things against it,” McLeod said. “That kind of let them get the momentum and we couldn’t get it back.”
Jessica Denmon scored a game-high 15 points for Oak Harbor and teammate Jennifer Jansen just missed a double-double with nine points and 11 rebounds.
Patrick had 14 points for Kamiak and teammate Samantha Sovich had 10, including a pair of three-point baskets.
Oak Harbor plays Edmonds-Woodway in a loser-out game at 6 p.m. tonight, Feb. 25, at Marysville.
Kamiak advances to next Saturday’s championship game at Jackson against Snohomish, which was a 51-33 winner over Marysville-Pilchuck in Saturday’s first semi final game.
Kamiak 43, Oak Harbor 34
Oak Harbor821113 — 34
Kamiak815137 — 43
Oak Harbor (34) — Jessica Denmon 5 4-7 15, Jennifer Jansen 4 1-2 9, Cheyenne Tubo 0 0-0 0, Nicole Mowbray 2 2-2 6, Clarissa Abadesco 1 0-0 2, Kathryn Fisken 0 0-0 0. Totals 13 7-12 34.
Kamiak (43) — Kelsey Patrick 5 4-5 14, Samantha Sovich 4 0-0 10, Kariah Kussman 2 0-0 4, Michelle Lipscomb 2 3-4 7, Georgia McClaskey 0 2-2 2, lauren Simmons 1 0-0 2, Carrie Barnes 1 0-0 2, Lexi Burns 0 0-0 0, Kari Mahjoubian 0 0-0 0, Shalyn Johnson 0 0-0 0, Natalie Stevens 0 0-0 0, Erika Larson 0 2-2 2. Totals 14 13-15 43.
