A sloppy first quarter by the Oak Harbor girls basketball team enabled Shorewood to jump on the visiting Wildcats early and secure a 60-41 Wesco 3A win Wednesday, Dec. 15.

The win was the Thunderbirds’ (1-1, 1-3) first and left Oak Harbor (0-2, 0-6) searching for its initial victory.

Oak Harbor hosts Everett (1-1, 5-1) Friday, Dec. 17, at 7:30 p.m.

Shorewood buried mistake-prone Oak Harbor with a 23-point first quarter.

To make matters worse, Oak Harbor failed to get out to three-point shooters, according to coach Trisha Clayville. The T-birds hit several bombs in the first quarter on the way to sinking seven (to Oak Harbor’s one) for the night.

The Wildcats trailed 23-13, 37-21 and 50-25 at the quarter breaks.

Clayville said Oak Harbor’s 28 turnovers “hurt us tremendously.”

The 41-point effort was the highest total for the ‘Cats this year, and Clayville called the offensive show “all right.”

She said, “Clarissa (Abadesco) had a good impact offensively, not by scoring a bunch, but by creating shots for other people. Our young kids struggled to put the ball in the basket.”

She added, “We did, however, get to the free-throw line 31 times, which was definitely a positive.”

Another plus for the Wildcats was rebounding where they held an edge, but, according to Clayville, the Wildcats “struggled to convert those rebounds to points.”

As far as surrendering 60 points, Clayville said, “We struggled defensively last night. We were weak in on-ball and help defense, but we will work on this and be better for Friday night.”

Freshman Annie Leete led Oak Harbor in scoring with 11 points. Janelle Yoshimoto added nine, Ciera Wiser six, Tatiana Cumming five, Dominique Jackson four, Emilie Renninger two, Abadesco two, Adrianna Royal one and Jalanie Bobo one.