Eagles trim ’Cats 32-30

Coming off a 65-18 victory over Everett Dec. 21 in the final WesCo North League basketball game before the Christmas break, the once-beaten Oak Harbor Wildcats expected to put a lot of points on the board as hosts of the two-day Santa Slam Tournament Dec. 28 and 29.

The second-annual event featured nine schools from Washington and British Columbia, Canada, a 24-game format divided into two divisions for freshman, junior varsity and varsity teams.

Playing in the gold division, the Wildcats squared off against Sumner Friday night and looked sharp in the opening period racing out to a 14-4 lead.

In the second period, however, something happened to Oak Harbor’s offense.

The Wildcats managed to score just three points as the Spartans battled back to trim the lead to a single point, 17-16, at halftime.

Making some adjustments at the break, the ’Cats came out on fire in the third quarter scoring 20 points to breeze to a 50-28 victory and set up Saturday’s division championship game against Federal Way.

For some unknown reason the game against Federal Way resembled the second quarter of the Sumner matchup, with the Wildcats finding it nearly impossible to put the ball in the basket.

The result was a 32-30 victory by the Eagles to claim the gold division’s first-place trophy.

“I’m not sure what’s going on,” coach Brett McLeod said after

the game. “We’re not shooting well and that seemed to snowball on us when we began missing shots. We couldn’t seem to get out of the rut and then late in the game they just out fought us, which I really don’t like.”

The score was tied 8-8 after the first quarter of action and in the second period, the Wildcats showed some signs of life.

Holding a 15-12 lead, Janay Baeyen knocked down a 3-point basket with 33 seconds remaining, and the Wildcats went into the halftime break on a high note holding an 18-12 lead.

“It seemed like we didn’t want it as much as Federal Way did,” Baeyen said. “We need to buckle down in practice. We could have won that game.”

Oak Harbor managed to score just 12 points in the second half as the Eagles put up 10 points in the third period and 10 more in the fourth to pull the game out.

“We really weren’t executing our plays very well tonight and we were off on our shots,” sophomore Jessica Denmon said.

Mietra Smollack was the only Oak Harbor player in double figures with 12 points.

Brittany Barrington scored a game-high 14 points for Federal Way and teammate Talia Walton scored 12.

Oak Harbor 50, Sumner 28

In the second half of Friday’s game against Sumner, Oak Harbor played some quality basketball.

Holding a 17-16 halftime lead, the Wildcats fell behind 18-17 when Jessica Brock hit a basket for the Spartans to open the third quarter.

After that, the three-point shots started falling.

Smollack put in three from long range and Denmon added a fourth and with 1:07 remaining in the period, Oak Harbor was up by 10 points, 32-22.

The Wildcats were stingy on defense giving up just six points in the period and went into the final eight minutes of play with a 37-22 lead.

“Our intensity was good and everything was good throughout the whole game, but our shots weren’t falling,” Smollack said. “We couldn’t really do anything about that except to keep shooting. We figured that out at halftime and stressed to keep shooting because we had good looks and eventually they started to fall.”

Oak Harbor remained tough on the defensive end of the court in the fourth quarter and again gave up just six points.

“I think that our team did really well on defense and we finally got some of our shots to go in,” junior Jasmine Chong said.

Smollack scored a game-high 20 points for the Wildcats and Denmon had 10.

“I thought we were rushing things when the shots weren’t going in,” McLeod said. “Instead of relaxing, we started pressing way too much. Some of those shots a lot of the girls are used to making and they weren’t making them so they got frustrated. We finally got settled down and got the offense going.”

Brock scored 11 points for Sumner.

Oak Harbor returns to WesCo North action today, hosting Stanwood in a 7:30 p.m. game

Friday, Dec. 28

Oak Harbor 50, Sumner 28

Sumner 4 12 6 6 — 28

Oak Harbor 14 3 20 13 — 50

Sumner (28) — Jessica Brock 4 1-3 11, Jessica Stanifer 2 0-0 5, Kaitlyn King 1 0-0 2, Anneglina Wager-Sanchez 2 0-0 4, Jordan Daniels 0 0-0 0, Lisa Schouten 0 0-1 0, Sadie Barnes 2 0-2 4, Alyssa Ramberg 0 0-0 0, Kendall Theden 0 0-0 0, Ally Newman 1 0-0 2. Totals 12 1-6 28.

Oak Harbor (50) — Mietra Smollack 7 3-4 20,Jessica Denmon 4 1-2 10, Clair Thiel 3 1-2 7, Cheyenne Tubo 0 0-0 0, Janay Baeyen 2 0-0 4, Jasmine Chong 0 1-2 1, Cori Henricksen0 0-0 0, Jennifer Jansen 1 2-5 4, Briana Brooks 0 0-1 0, Roshaunda Smith 2 0-2 4. Totals 19 8-18 50.

Three-point goals — Sumner 3 (Brock 2, Stanifer); Oak Harbor 4 (Smollack 3, Denmon). Turnovers — Sumner 31, Oak Harbor 12. Total fouls — Sumner 16, Oak Harbor 13. Fouled out — none.

Saturday, Dec. 29

Federal Way 32, Oak Harbor 30

Federal Way 8 4 10 10 — 32

Oak Harbor 8 10 5 7 — -30

Federal Way (32) — Brittany Barrington 6 1-5 14, Talia Walton 6 0-1 12, Jacque Evenson 1 0-0 2, Chantel Dixon 0 0-2 0, Joanne Packer 0 0-0 0, Briana Bennett 0 0-0 0, Ivanca Frerichs 0 0-0 0, Molly Campbell 2 0-0 4. Totals 15 1-8 32.

Oak Harbor (30) — Mietra Smollack 3 6-8 12, Janay Baeyen 2 0-0 5, Cheyenne Tubo 0 0-0 0, Jessica Denmon 1 0-1 2, Jennifer Jansen 1 1-2 3, Clair Thiel 1 2-2 4, Roshaunda Smith 1 0-0 2, Cori Henricksen 1 0-0 2. Totals 10 9-13 30.

Three-point goals — Federal Way 1 (Barrington); Oak Harbor 1 (Baeyen). Turnovers — Federal Way 14, Oak Harbor 23. Total fouls — Federal Way 16, Oak Harbor 18. Fouled out — Bennett, Baeyen.

Friday, Dec. 28

Gold Division

Federal Way def. Lynden 63-56

Oak Harbor def. Sumner 50-28

Purple Division

Anacortes def. Tahoma 47-32

Lakewood def. Auburn Mountainview 48-46

Saturday, Dec. 29

Gold Division

Consolation

Lynden def. Sumner 71-38

Championship